How Rachel Oduya Built a Home Office Dropshipping Store That Keeps Growing — with Spocket

Rachel Oduya  |  Founder, DeskDan Co.  |  Nashville, TN  |  Former Project Manager (Remote)

The frustrated customer who became the store

It was mid-2022, and Rachel had been doing all her work from her kitchen table. Her back hurt terribly. Her webcam made her look ashen in every single call she participated in. Not to mention she had already wasted three whole weeks searching for an ergonomic monitor mount that looked good in a home office environment. Being a professional project manager, organizing chaos was what Rachel did for a living. And the fact that there wasn’t even one decent online store selling office furniture for home office enthusiasts annoyed her immensely.

She created the store she wanted to shop at. Within six months, the DeskDen Co. was making more money than the PM job she was earning. As a result of the remote work trend, there was an increasing need for office supplies dropshipping from the USA, which Spocket provided with fast delivery times.

Launching at a macro moment and not wasting it

Why timing plus execution beat timing alone

As of mid-2022, 27% of employees in the US were working from home either partially or entirely on any given day. The value of the home office furniture market was well above $19 billion, growing annually at a consistent rate. Google search trends for terms such as "ergonomic desk setup" and "home office accessories" showed an increase for two consecutive years.

Rachel noticed something, though. Most stores selling into this space were generic. They carried a desk, a chair, some cable clips, maybe a mousepad. Everything and nothing. She went narrow instead. "The serious home office" was her angle. Ergonomic, clean-looking, productivity-focused. She picked the home office niche early and committed to it.

She launched DeskDen in August 2022 through dropshipping. First month revenue hit $1,800. She had Facebook ads going within two weeks and was seeing a 2.4x return on ad spend. Nothing crazy. But the traction was real.

Speed became quite important here. Products from Spocket suppliers based in the USA arrived at customers' doors in 3 to 5 days. Orders for delivery within the USA in that time period made her more competitive against companies that sourced their inventory from Asia and had deliveries arriving in 3 to 4 weeks.

"Every day I waited was a day someone else launched. I had the store live in 11 days and the first ad running in 14. I knew the window wouldn't stay open."

— Rachel Oduya, Founder, DeskDen Co.

Suppliers for a productivity-conscious audience

But the consumers who bought Rachel’s stands weren’t random consumers. No, they had done their research and checked out sites such as Wirecutter beforehand, and they weren’t paying $40 for just any old laptop stand; no, they knew ergonomics when they saw it.

She filtered Spocket to include US and Canadian office and productivity products suppliers. Spocket office suppliers definitely did not disappoint her. Among the best that she found included an ergonomic accessories supplier based in Ohio, USA, a standing desk accessories supplier from Canada, and a supplier of organizational monitor accessories in North Carolina, USA. After getting samples from all of them, she did due diligence by checking their specifications and comparing with Wirecutter and The Verge reviews.

With each one of her listings on her home office products dropshipping website, she created a section entitled "Why We Chose This Product." This consisted of a description of roughly 80 to 100 words on why the particular product had been selected. The visitors on her site definitely read these, as she knew from looking at heat maps. It was also great for SEO purposes, as well.

Spocket has no MOQs, so she could order samples without committing to bulk. Early on, that mattered while she figured out what sold. She used Spocket's profit margin calculator to price everything before going live. Spocket integrates with Wix, WooCommerce, eBay, and BigCommerce, which she looked into before settling on Shopify.

Building staying power beyond the trend

What kept DeskDen growing after remote work normalized

The remote work craze had long subsided by early 2023. All those who needed to establish a working environment had done so. Many other stores, which had opened on the back of mere trend popularity, experienced traffic drops or complete abandonment.

While Rachel had already established herself in a position to capitalize on the situation. She had already been developing her own brand for twelve months, along with collecting around two thousand four hundred email subscribers and accumulating enough content, which could bring visitors organically. The trend brought new customers; the brand retained them.

She ventured into “home office aesthetics.” There was money being spent on how professionals appeared through video calls from the comfort of their homes. Her new Spocket suppliers included high-end desk plants, wire organizers, and mood lighting products. Drop shipping ergonomic products was still her main gig, but the diversification made things more interesting.

The type of content she created changed as well. Instead of creating articles about how to set up a home office, she began focusing on upgrades, which appealed to the next group of customers because they had bigger budgets.

"The trend got me in the door. But the customers who came back, they came back for DeskDen. Not for the trend. That's when I knew I'd built something that would last."

— Rachel Oduya, Founder, DeskDen Co.

SEO as the long-term moat

Rachel published two long-form guides a month during year one. Titles like "Best Ergonomic Desk Accessories Under $75," "How to Set Up a Dual Monitor Home Office on a Budget," and "The No-BS Home Office Setup Guide for Remote Workers." These were the kind of best home office products roundups her audience was actually searching for.

Organic search was generating 26% of her traffic by month 14. She was also getting 24% of her traffic through email marketing. Her half of visitors didn’t cost her anything in terms of advertising. It was this approach that helped make her business sustainable.

In the second year, she slashed Meta’s advertising spending by 35 percent without hurting her revenues. Organic traffic and email marketing made up for any loss of revenues because she was able to narrow her niche and focus on productivity through dropshipping.

Spocket's role by year two was mostly behind the scenes. Automated fulfillment kept running while Rachel put more hours into content and SEO. She started browsing trending dropshipping products on Spocket to test new items without much risk, listing them fast and pulling anything that didn't sell.

For anyone eyeing remote work dropshipping or home office products dropshipping now: the best niches for dropshipping still include home office and productivity, especially if you go specific. Spocket also offers print-on-demand for custom branded accessories. With Spocket's pricing starting at $39/month, the barrier is low. Marc Chapon, is also another user who built a successful business and fixed exactly the same supplier and shipping problems Rachel kept running into.

Results

$11.4K  Monthly revenue at peak   |   $63  Avg order value   |   110+  Products listed

4.7★  Store review avg   |   26%  Organic traffic share   |   US+CA  Primary supplier countries

Build a store for the long game, with US suppliers your customers can trust. Start your free Spocket trial.