Ready, Set, Dropship! How to Start a Successful Dropshipping Business

The e-commerce landscape has taken center stage in the business world for some time now. Buying and selling online is an activity that has come to stay, and it continues to grow, presenting new alternatives for both sellers and buyers.

In this scenario, it can be challenging to carve out a niche. What is the best way to progress and pursue success? Dropshipping is undoubtedly a door that opens up new possibilities. But what is it? How does it work? How do we carry it out?

If any of these questions are on your mind, you’ve come to the right place! In this article, we will review point by point everything you need to know about this business model that can help you start shaping a new way to profits.

What Is Dropshipping?

Dropshipping is at the forefront of eCommerce, providing a more executable eCommerce model. Now, let’s define how dropshipping works and the entities involved in the process:

• Step 1: Customers place orders in our store
• Step 2: We purchase the products from our suppliers
• Step 3: We keep the profit between the source and selling price.

Dropshipping is a low-risk order fulfillment model since we don’t maintain a physical stock of the items that we sell. Because we don’t have the expenses of holding inventory and only pay after getting paid, it requires a minimal start-up investment.

Dropshipping begins when customers place orders in our online stores. After payments are processed and delivery options are selected, our trusted suppliers prepare the items for shipment. The suppliers then handle the shipping directly to our customers, streamlining the process and allowing store owners to focus on growing their business. Starting a dropshipping business is simpler than it seems.

In dropshipping, we source trending products to offer in our online stores. This process involves working with suppliers and selling channels.

Suppliers are entities where we pick top-notch products and import them into our online stores. The management of quality, inventory, storage, and shipment of orders lies in the supplier’s hands. So, we must filter only the most reliable suppliers for our online business. While we, as dropshippers, manage and market our products through our selling channels.

These selling channels are platforms where we sell these products to our target market. We will discuss these platforms further below.

Benefits And Challenges Of Dropshipping

Dropshipping is not a pyramid scheme or one of those get-rich-quick schemes; it is a business model that, like any other, has its benefits and challenges. Overall, it presents more positive aspects than negative ones, especially when we consider the low economic risk it entails initially.

Unlike traditional businesses, dropshipping eliminates the need to invest in inventory upfront, rent warehouses, or hire employees, significantly reducing loss risk. This makes dropshipping highly scalable. Additionally, it offers complete flexibility since it only requires an internet connection. 

This allows us to work from anywhere and at any time. The potential to incorporate automation into this model makes dropshipping particularly appealing for those seeking a business that allows us to manage our time according to our preferences.

Regarding the challenges, such advantages can attract many entrepreneurs like us. This leads to high levels of competition that compel us to differentiate our brand so that our audience chooses our store for their purchases. We must be careful when setting up our store and establishing our branding.

On the other hand, we need to consider how much the supplier’s performance influences our relationship with the audience. Our success heavily depends on the quality of the products, shipping times, return policies, and other factors we do not control. Therefore, it is crucial to carefully select a supplier who aligns with our brand values and objectives.

Most of the obstacles and challenges we may encounter in dropshipping can be solved by continuously learning more about the activity. As mentioned earlier, automation can help us address a significant portion of the workload, freeing up more time to focus on priority aspects of the business.

Why You Should Start Dropshipping

Dropshipping presents a low-risk opportunity to embark on a new adventure with a high likelihood of success. If we are tired of our office job or want to add an extra income stream as a side hustle, we can start this business model during our free time without quitting anything or jumping into the unknown. Eventually, the more time and focus we dedicate to it, the more this business can grow to become our primary source of income.

Moreover, the statistics regarding dropshipping are very favorable. By 2026, the market is projected to grow to approximately $476.1 billion, indicating a robust upward trend. An increasing number of segments within the population are choosing e-commerce for their purchases, opening up new niches and opportunities that we can target to differentiate ourselves from the competition.

How To Start A Dropshipping Business

Since we now know about the most popular selling channels, we can begin learning how to start a dropshipping business.

Here are the steps we need to take to start a successful dropshipping business:

• Step 1: Determine Your Starting Budget
• Step 2: Find Out Your Requirements
• Step 3: Choose A Selling Channel
• Step 4: Find Products To Sell – Product Research
• Step 5: Choose A Dropshipping Supplier
• Step 6: Connect With An Automation Tool
• Step 7: Import Your Products
• Step 8: Market Your Products
• Step 9: Fulfill Orders
• Step 10: Provide Excellent Customer Service

Step 1: Determine Your Starting Budget

Before starting a dropshipping business, we first need to determine our working capital. We also have to identify which available selling platforms work best for our budget. So, we need to know how much it costs to dropship. 

Each selling channel has budget requirements with its corresponding features. So, let’s dive into the details of these requirements:

Facebook Marketplace Starting Budget: $0 – $200

Starting a dropshipping business in Facebook Marketplace needs no initial working budget. Therefore, this platform allows us to list items in our online stores freely.

The only expense that we need to incur is paying for the first few orders until we receive payouts from Facebook. When we provide tracking information that Facebook supports (UPS, USPS, and FedEx), payouts usually take a couple of days. Otherwise, they can take a couple of weeks. Depending on our orders, it usually costs around $100 to $200 until we get our payout.

Shopify Starting Budget: $500 – $1000

For beginners, we need a $500 to $1000 start-up budget to dropship on Shopify. Moreover, we need to register for a Basic Store subscription plan. If we get the yearly subscription, the plan is $29 per month. Otherwise, it’s $39.99. You can try it with the $1 for 1-month trial (Shopify offers are subject to change).

Additionally, Shopify doesn’t offer free organic traffic. Therefore, we need to source traffic from marketing efforts like Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and Influencers. Running Facebook/Google ad campaigns usually cost a minimum of $5 to $10 daily. Moreover, Influencers commonly cost $50 to $100 per promotion of our business.

eBay Starting Budget: $50 – $100

When selling on eBay, we need about $50 to $100 to get started. While opening an eBay account is free, we still need to put aside around $100 for the possible delays in payouts for our first few orders. Listing our first 250 products with eBay’s managed payments system is free. If we don’t opt into eBay’s managed payments system, we can sell about 200 items free of charge.

If our online stores exceed 250 product listings in a month, it’s advisable to subscribe to an eBay Basic Store to avoid insertion fees. A Basic Store subscription starts at $21.95/month. Additionally, when selling on eBay, we also need to account for international fees for eBay global sellers. 

Amazon Starting Budget: $500 

Notably, if we want to sell on Amazon, we need to cover the $0.99/sale with the Individual Plan. This is a great way to keep our spending down if we’re just starting off and are not receiving many orders yet. However, once we start getting more orders, it’s best if we subscribe to their Professional selling plan, which costs $39.99/month. That way, we will pay that fixed price no matter how many items you sell.

Moreover, we also need to account for the fact that UPC codes cost around $250 but aren’t required. UPC stands for Unique Product Code, which differentiates between similar (or identical) products. The cost will vary depending on how many codes we are purchasing.

WooCommerce Starting Budget: $500

Since with WooCommerce we can build and customize our own store, it comes with a monthly subscription. Plus, WooCommerce is a WordPress extension that we can sign up for for free. WordPress gives us a generic domain with generic hosting. But, the bandwidth is limited and slow, while the domain can’t be customized. 

So, it’s best if we purchase a domain that we can customize, which comes at around $20/year. On top of that, once we subscribe to the WooCommerce plugin, we’ll have to pay $25/month. We also need to invest in marketing since WooCommerce doesn’t have organic traffic. Facebook/Google ad campaigns usually cost a minimum of $5 to $10 daily. Moreover, Influencers commonly cost $50 to $100 per promotion of our business.

Wix Starting Budget: $500

Similarly, like most customizable website selling channels, the subscription fee covers most of the fees associated with dropshipping. Wix’s cheapest plan comes at $17/month, which includes getting a domain for free for the first year. But, after that, we need to account for domain costs at around $20/year. 

Since it’s a customizable website with no organic, we need to market our Wix business with paid ads. Usually, paid ad campaigns on Google or Facebook cost at least $5 – $10/day. 

Etsy Starting Budget: $100

While Etsy used to offer free shop creation, it now charges a $30 fee to open a new store. This fee only applies to new accounts; existing users are exempt. Despite this change, the expense is minor and can be easily covered by the profits from your first one or two orders. Notably, there are no recurring monthly fees, making Etsy an excellent choice for dropshipping. Plus, Etsy is a marketplace which means it already has a ton of organic traffic, saving on marketing costs. 

However, there are listing fees associated with dropshipping on Etsy. In fact, we need to pay a flat fee of $0.20/listing. On top of that, we also need to cover a transaction fee. A transaction fee is what we pay whenever we make a sale on Etsy, and it’s currently 6.5% of the total sales price. This includes the cost of shipping, gift wrapping, and product personalization. 

Other Fees To Consider 

Now, we need to also account for international selling fees. The international fee is calculated on the total amount of the sale. Moreover, it’s automatically deducted from our sales proceeds. Importantly, these fees apply to dropshippers that dropship on eBay. The fees vary between countries and also depend on where they are shipped from. To understand the costs unique to our store, we need to look at the international fees for eBay global sellers. 

Moreover, there are fees associated with using any payment provider. To explain, these are fees charged to merchants for processing credit card payments and online payments from customers. The most used payment gateways are Paypal and Payoneer. For example, if we use Payoneer, we will pay 3% of the transaction amount when using a credit card. If we use PayPal, we will pay 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for US transactions a 4.4% + a fixed fee for international ones. 

Next up, we need to account for shipping costs, taxes, and customs duty. Firstly, shipping costs are set by our supplier and average at around $20. Additionally, the amount of import tax and duties to be paid depends on the country that the goods are imported from. Notably, duty tax rates are between 0 to 37.5%, with the typical rate being 5.63%.

Step 2: Find Out Your Requirements

After securing our starting budget, we must meet the necessary requirements to start a dropshipping business. Each selling channel has its own set of requirements, so let’s break them down:

• Facebook Marketplace: Requires an active Facebook account and a US-based profile with a US IP address. To enable shipping options and receive payouts, we must also deliver to all 50 US states.
• Shopify: We need to sign up for a Shopify account and select a subscription plan. Shopify also requires a custom domain (unless using a Shopify subdomain) and additional investments in marketing since it doesn’t provide organic traffic.
• eBay: We must create an eBay seller account. There are no major requirements, but we should be prepared for potential payout delays for our first few orders. If we exceed 250 monthly product listings, subscribing to an eBay Basic Store can help reduce fees.
• Amazon: Requires setting up a seller account. We can start with an Individual Plan ($0.99 per sale) or opt for the Professional Plan ($39.99/month) when scaling up. Some product categories require approval, and UPC codes might be necessary for certain listings.
• WooCommerce: Since WooCommerce is a WordPress extension, we must first set up a WordPress website. Additionally, purchasing a domain and hosting service is highly recommended for a professional store setup.
• Wix: We need to sign up for a Wix account and select a premium plan to unlock eCommerce features. Since Wix doesn’t generate organic traffic, we must also invest in paid advertising.
• Etsy: Etsy now charges a $30 fee to open a new store (for new users), but existing sellers are exempt. There are also $0.20 listing fees per item, plus 6.5% transaction fees on sales, including shipping costs. Etsy is a great option for niche, handmade, or personalized items.
• TikTok Shop: We need to apply for a TikTok Shop seller account and meet TikTok’s eligibility requirements, which vary by region. TikTok prioritizes sellers who can provide fast shipping and high-quality products. Additionally, TikTok’s algorithm heavily influences product visibility, so marketing is crucial.

Each platform has different rules, fees, and benefits. Choosing the right one depends on our budget, goals, and marketing strategy. Once we meet the requirements, we can build our store and list products.

Step 3: Choose A Selling Channel

The selling channels that we utilize play a significant role in learning how to start a dropshipping business. In this section, we will learn about the best dropshipping selling platforms that can help us succeed in finding and targeting our audiences.

Generally, there are two types of selling channels – marketplaces and customizable eCommerce platforms. To clarify, a marketplace is a platform that lists products from multiple sellers. If we use a marketplace to dropship our product, we can leverage the trust and recognition that the marketplace already has. On top of that, we can utilize the large audience readily available on the platform.

Alternatively, utilizing an eCommerce website allows for more customization and better brand development. Furthermore, it allows the buyer to focus only on our listings and products without their attention being pulled by another seller with the same product.

With that said, let’s take a look at the best-selling channels for us to start dropshipping:

eBay

eBay dropshipping is well known for being one of the most well-supplied and diverse online marketplaces. In addition, eBay does include dropshipping in its model and is a great place to start a dropshipping business. 

Pros:

• Easy to get started 
• Millions of products
• Minimal investment required 
• eBay’s vast and loyal customer base worldwide 
• Customer-oriented sellers 
• Fast shipping times
• Buyer/seller protection 
• Spy on competition 

Cons: 

• Varying business policies
• Selling limits 
• Lack of customization 
• Competition is fierce

Shopify

Shopify dropshipping helps entrepreneurs create and manage their online stores with zero coding. In short, this means that Shopify is a hosted eCommerce platform software. Additionally, their diverse customization options and themes allow us to personalize our store to stand out from the competition. 

Pros: 

• Hosted platform
• Customization options
• Professional templates
• Shipping discounts
• Customer service
• Buy pre-built or custom dropshipping stores

Cons: 

• Monthly or yearly subscriptions
• No organic traffic 
• Online credit card fees 
• Complicated exit strategy 

Amazon

When dropshipping on Amazon, we can leverage the trust and recognition that the marketplace already has. On top of that, we can utilize the large audience readily available on Amazon.

Pros: 

• Free organic traffic
• No warehouse cost 
• Large active user base 
• Multiple product categories 
• Easy scalability 
• Efficient order fulfillment

Cons:

• Limited branding 
• Competition

Etsy

Dropshipping on Etsy gives us an edge since this marketplace is not as saturated as Amazon or eBay. We can utilize Etsy as our selling channel to maximize our profits. By offering unique or handmade products, we can attract a broader customer base and safeguard our business.

Pros: 

• Open marketplace 
• Free organic traffic
• Minimal competition
• Low upfront costs
• Niche platform 
• Branding opportunities
• Higher profit margins

Cons:

• High fees
• Rigid dropshipping rules 
• Time-consuming listing process 

Facebook Marketplace / FB Shops

Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Shops are Facebook selling channels where people can discover, buy and sell items. What makes them super profitable is the fact that they’re untapped, so there is not a lot of competition. Apart from this, since organic traffic and sales are booming, it’s the perfect platform to use for dropshipping.

Pros: 

• We can dropship without a website
• No startup costs 
• Super low selling fees at 5% or $0.40 per transaction
• Little competition, with a small number of sellers

Cons:

• Must be a US citizen
• Location filter for product listings

Beginner’s Tip: Find out which platform is better for dropshipping in our Facebook Shops vs Facebook Marketplace guide.

WooCommerce

Now, WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin for WordPress. With WooCommerce dropshipping, we can create and customize our own store. Plus, it has a number of menu options that help us run our store successfully. 

Pros: 

• Fully customizable
• High scalability
• Easy to start
• Tons of free & paid plugins/themes 
• Content management system

Cons:

• Learning curve 
• No organic traffic 
• Monthly subscription

Wix

Wix is well known a website builder, and with that, we have the opportunity to create and build an e-commerce store. Furthermore, Wix is a great hosted platform to use for dropshipping because it’s super easy to use. Hence, if we are looking for a quick and easy way to start selling, dropshipping on Wix may be our solution. 

Pros:

• Easy to build a store
• Reasonably priced 
• Wix app market 
• Customizable platform 
• No seller limits
• Global market reach

Cons:

• Not very flexible 
• No organic traffic
• Marketing expenses
• Monthly subscription for full optimization

TikTok Shop

Starting dropshipping on TikTok Shop allows us to showcase our products to a massive audience, leveraging the popularity and engagement of TikTok users. The platform’s focus on visual content and interaction facilitates the creative promotion of our store, enabling us to connect with our customers in innovative ways.

Pros:

• Access to a large audience
• Promotion through visual content
• Direct interaction with customers
• Opportunities for product virality
• Integration with trends and challenges

Cons:

• High competition in content
• Dependence on TikTok’s algorithm
• Limitations in-store customization

Ultimately, no matter which of these selling channels we choose, AutoDS supports them all, making dropshipping much easier for us.

Step 4: Find Products To Sell – Product Research

Product research is integral to the success of our dropshipping business. The key to effective product research is to use data-driven methods to identify winning products. 

With that said, there are a few factors that can help us determine winning products:

• High demand
• Low competition
• Positive reviews
• Profitability
• Trends 
• Quality 

In order for us to conduct quality product research, there are a few methods we can take advantage of: 

• AutoDS Hand-picked Products Hub
• AutoDS Product-Finding Blog & YouTube Channel
• Supplier Best Sellers 
• AliExpress Dropship Center
• Google Trends & Google Lens
• Social Media Trends 

AutoDS Hand-picked Products Hub

Product research is very time-consuming, but we can automate our product research process with AutoDS’ Hand-picked Products Hub. The AutoDS Hand-picked Products Hub gives us the hottest, best-selling items in no time. 

In fact, by going on the tool’s dashboard, we can easily find popular items that are selling well, along with detailed analytics. 

AutoDS Product-Finding Blog & YouTube Channel

Furthermore, an easy and convenient way to find winning products is with AutoDS’ blog and YouTube best-sellers playlist. From this content, we can get access to exclusive product suggestions, enabling us to scale our eCommerce dropshipping venture. 

Amazon Best Sellers

Amazon Best Sellers is a list of the top-selling products across various categories. The list includes products that are popular among customers based on their sales volume. That way, we can have a good idea of what people are actively buying and take advantage of that.

AliExpress Dropship Center

The AliExpress Dropshipping Center is a powerful tool with the ability to find top-selling products. To find best-sellers, this tool looks at various factors like price range, category, and popularity. 

Google Trends & Google Lens

Google Trends allows dropshippers to analyze search data for a specific keyword over a particular period. As such, this information can help us determine a product’s or niche’s popularity and identify any seasonal or long-term trends. 

Google Lens, on the other hand, is a visual search tool that can help dropshippers identify products and their suppliers. To explain, with Google Lens, we scan an image of a product, and the tool will provide information on the product’s name, manufacturer, and supplier. 

Social Media Trends 

Lastly, with social media being such a big driver in online trends and eCommerce, it would be beneficial if we checked out what’s trending. We can do this by searching for relevant hashtags to see social media product trends and what people are buying. For example, we can search for hashtags like: 

#tiktokmademebuyit

#amazonfinds

#gadgets

… and many others.

Step 5: Choose A Dropshipping Supplier

Once we have trending products that we want to sell, we need to source these items from dependable suppliers.

When picking a supplier, we must consider these primary factors that it can provide our dropshipping business:

• Reliability
• Shipping speed
• Return policies
• Customer service
• Quality of products

There is a wide range of options when choosing our suppliers. AutoDS supports a variety of reliable suppliers with automation features such as:

• Price and stock monitoring
• Product importing
• Automated orders

In fact, AutoDS supports a long list of prominent and trustworthy global suppliers. To name a few, they work with AliExpress, CJDropshipping, Walmart, Shein, Etsy, Amazon and many others.

We can also rely on the AutoDS Marketplace, where we effortlessly discover, source, research, and import winning products from private and retail dropshipping suppliers. Uniquely, AutoDS has numerous interesting private suppliers that other dropshippers don’t have access to. This can give us a competitive edge. Plus, we can also use the AutoDS Warehouse, which allows us to source safely from China by doing quality checks and cutting down shipping times.

Step 6: Connect With An Automation Tool

One of the best aspects of dropshipping is that we can automate our tasks! As such, dropshipping automation allows us to automate the entire dropshipping process. As a result, we save a bunch of time and effort while reducing errors in any of the steps. Plus, by automating our dropshipping processes, we can optimize our business and boost profits.

With this in mind, the best all-in-one automation tool to use is AutoDS. AutoDS has a myriad of tools that allow us to scale and grow our dropshipping business:

• Price/Stock Monitoring
• Product Importer 
• Price Optimization
• Complete Order Fulfillment
• Easy Inventory Management
• Automatic Tracking Updates
• Print On Demand 

With the software doing the work for us, we can focus on improving our product catalog, testing new products, and seeing what works for us. That way, we’re focusing our efforts on scaling our business instead of on running our business.

Step 7: Import Your Products

Next, we need to import trending items and offer them in our sales channels. We have two options for importing products – manual and automatic.

Importing products allows us to source items from our suppliers and offer them in our selling channels. However, manually listing products can consume significant time and effort.

To conserve our time and effort, we can utilize the automation of the import process for us. We can use the AutoDS Dropshipping Product Importer, which includes the following methods:

•  The one-click importer
• Adding the buy URL/ID (Single Product or Multiple Products)
• Importing products in bulk

To demonstrate the simplicity of import automation, let’s take a look at the Single Product Uploader – a fast and convenient way of listing one product at a time. The following steps are applicable for Shopify, eBay, and Facebook Marketplace.

Single Product Uploader

The Single Product Uploader allows us to import a single item in just a couple of seconds. To begin, go to the product page of the item you want to add. Then, copy the product’s URL or ID. After doing so, proceed to the AutoDS platform and click on the ‘Add Products’ on the left sidebar.

Click the ‘Single Product’ choice, and paste the URL or product ID of the item. Now, click the ‘Edit Now (Quick)’ button, and after a few seconds, a dialog box will appear on the upper part of the page. This part signifies that the product is being processed to your drafts page for optimization.

When the import process is completed, your product will show up in the drafts section. On the drafts page, we can optimize our products’ titles, categories, pricing, automation, item specifications, images, and more. After optimization, click the ‘Save’ button to update the product details.

When the product is ready for import to your selling channel, click the ‘Save and Import’ button. The item will move from being a draft to the ‘Products’ section. Now, your product is live in your online store.

Step 8: Market Your Products

If we want to run a successful dropshipping business, we need to generate interest and turn that into sales. Plus, we need to navigate through the competition and do our best to stand out. With that said, the best way to achieve this is through marketing.

With this in mind, getting the right message in front of our target audience at the perfect time is key. In fact, marketing helps us build a relationship with our target audience. So, this will not only increase sales but will also help us become recognizable.

With that said, let’s dive into both free/organic and paid marketing methods that will help us attract customers:

• Email marketing
• Blog & videos
• Influencer marketing
• PPC ads (Pay-per-click)

Email Marketing

One way we can go about generating free traffic is through email marketing. We can reach out to existing or target new customers with email marketing. However, we need to offer some incentives like discounts or newsletter subscriptions to get our customers’ emails. Then, we can create an email database. 

Once we build our database, we can send out marketing emails to encourage customers to buy. We can do this manually ourselves or we can send our emails in bulk through a CRM. 

Blog & Videos

Creating a blog or product videos is a free and great way to boost organic traffic to our store. Running a relevant and helpful blog that is fully SEO optimized can build a following and recognition. Plus, it’s a great way to market our products and encourage customers to make a purchase. 

Similarly, making product videos is a free way to fully showcase our products in a way that motivates a sale. But, to stand out, we need to ensure that our videos are appealing and catchy. 

PPC Ads

Pay-per-click ads (PPC) or paid dropshipping ads are great ways to target our audience actively. It allows us to define the parameters to target our ideal customers. Thus, we pay each time someone clicks on our ad for PPC ads. However, the cost per click varies depending on the platform and ad type. Generally, paid ads cost a minimum of $5 – $10/day. 

But, we can start with a low budget and scale as our PPC ads gain more traction and our website attracts more traffic. 

Influencer Marketing

Without a doubt, influencer marketing is a goldmine for great ROI on our dropshipping marketing efforts. Influencers have specialized knowledge, authority, or insight into a specific niche. Undeniably, their pre-existing presence in a niche makes them a helpful launching pad for our dropshipping business. 

The cost of influencer marketing varies from influencer to influencer. Also, the cost depends on the influencer’s social media presence and the number of followers. 

However, marketing is a huge topic with many avenues that can bring us success. It all depends on which marketing method best fits our needs and our business.

Step 9: Fulfill Orders

When customers start buying products from our online store, we must fulfill and deliver their orders quickly.

As we figured out how to start a dropshipping business, we learned that there are two ways of fulfilling orders: Manually and automatically.

For the manual fulfillment of orders, go to your supplier’s page and purchase the item. Then, ship the parcel directly to your buyer’s address. You can use gift options whenever applicable to prevent the buyer from seeing the product’s original price.

Meanwhile, we can utilize the Fulfilled by AutoDS service for automatic order fulfillment. The program automatically processes the orders on your behalf. Also, it will update tracking details on your store and the AutoDS platform in real-time.

Additionally, there’s no need to create buyer accounts with your suppliers since everything is automated. All you have to do is opt-in to the Fulfilled by AutoDS service, and load auto-order credits as well as balance to fulfill your customers’ orders.

The order automation can work 24/7 – even while you travel or sleep. Your customers will get their packages at blazing fast speed, and they’ll have you to thank for it. Now you can truly enjoy business automation and easy scaling!

Fulfilled by AutoDS supports the following suppliers using USD currencies: Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, and AliExpress. However, if we’re not working with these suppliers, then we can rely on the AutoDS Automatic Orders tool. This tool uses our buyer accounts to fulfill our orders, so we don’t have to do it manually ourselves. This optimizes the process and fulfills orders as soon as they come in.

In addition, eBay and Shopify are the selling channels that the service supports. Watch out for the addition of Facebook Marketplace to the list coming soon!

Step 10: Provide Excellent Customer Service

Undoubtedly, providing our customers with exceptional customer service is vital for our success. This is because it helps us differentiate ourselves from the competition and attain customer loyalty. So, customers will be encouraged to return if they have a pleasant experience when purchasing from our store. 

To demonstrate, a general way to offer customer service is by providing frequently asked questions. Thus, we can try to help our customers without them even reaching out. Moreover, a more direct and personal approach is through email. To explain, once a customer sends us their query, we can resolve it by sending them an email with the answer or solution. 

In contrast, we can also have a more direct approach, like live chat. Notably, this allows our customers to resolve any issue or question directly and quickly. Another direct way of offering customer support is by phone. Similar to live chat, we have direct and almost instant contact with our customers. 

As such, these tactics allow us to differentiate ourselves from the competition. On top of that, they ensure we offer an enjoyable experience for our customers.

Best Dropshipping Products & Niches To Start Your Business

When starting a dropshipping business, one of the most common problems is deciding which products and niches to sell.

Start with in-demand items to sell so that you can gain quick sales from the start. On that note, here are some of the best niches for dropshipping in 2025 we suggest starting with:

• Pet Car Seat Covers
• Food Storage Organizers
• Camping Hammocks
• Insect Traps
• Essential Oil Diffusers

Let’s briefly go over each niche:

Pet Niche

Attention dropshipping beginners! The pet products niche is one of the most profitable, maintaining a steady advantage throughout the year, making it an evergreen niche. More and more people seek the best quality items for their furry friends. This market keeps growing for food, toys, personalized accessories, and innovative treats!

 Our Product Selection:  Pet Car Seat Covers

Dropshipping pet car seat covers can attract many pet lovers, as these items provide comfort to their pets and protect their car seats. We can offer color variations of this product idea to suit customer preferences. Also, this item can come in various materials which we can sell like cloth or leather.

Moreover, we can sell quilted, bed-type, hammock-like, and many more options. Make sure to offer varying sizes and shapes of these items to accommodate pets’ different sizes and needs.

Beginner’s Tip: Include variations with water-proof linings for an added layer of protection.

Kitchen Supplies

The modernization of culinary spaces, the growing trend of food influencers, and methodologies that make cooking at home an increasingly popular activity are driving significant growth in the kitchen utensils market. Users are becoming more interested in products that enhance their culinary experience. 

Our Product Selection: Food Organizers

When selling food storage organizers in our dropshipping stores, bear in mind to include different sizes of containers, ranging from smaller ones to larger options. Also, we can offer varying shapes like square, circular, rectangular, or any other shapes of organizers.

For aesthetic purposes, we can also sell numerous color choices for this item. Dropship food storage organizers are plastic, glass, silicone, ceramic, and more.

Since many buyers buy more than one food container at once, we can increase our average order value and profit by offering volume discount pricing.

Outside Sports

The advantage of targeting a niche like outside sports is that it is a broad category encompassing various outdoor activities, from camping and hiking to water sports. People of all ages are interested in these types of activities, leading to an increase in demand for equipment and accessories tailored to different needs. We can leverage this to target various audiences or focus on a sub-niche.

Our Product Selection: Camping Hammocks

These items are sought-after for outdoor activities or indoor relaxation. So, dropshipping this versatile product can help our stores gain many sales.

Moreover, Camping Hammocks come in numerous designs, so make sure to offer a vast selection of colors and patterns in your online store. Also, consider offering varying sizes and capacities that cater to both children and adults.

For hammocks used in outdoor adventures, we can offer variations that come with covers or shades. Additionally, provide camping hammocks in different materials like cotton, parachute, polyester, nylon, canvas, and many more.

Beginner’s Tip: Since customers can utilize this product anywhere, we can sell portable options like those that fold into a bag or turn into a makeshift pillow.

Home Improvement 

The pandemic has heightened many people’s desire to improve their personal spaces. The “Do It Yourself” (DIY) trend accelerates this, with a large segment of the population investing in furniture, decor, and tools for gardening or home innovations.

Our Product Selection:  Insect Traps

Insect Traps helps customers minimize or eliminate unwanted insects indoors and outdoors. With this, insect traps are among the best–selling products to dropship.

Insect traps come in many variations in materials they are made of – plastic, paper, cloth, and many more. We can sell different sizes and shapes, depending on the insects that customers target to catch.

Additionally, types of insect traps that we can offer in our dropshipping stores include light traps, adhesive traps, fly insects traps, terrestrial arthropod traps, and aquatic arthropod traps.

Moreover, we can consider offering options that come with food, chemical, light, or other baits. We can sell these products in bundles and offer them at lower prices for shoppers who frequently use these items.

Home Goods

The global home goods market is expected to grow as consumers seek unique and sustainable options. Products like eco-friendly textiles and personalized decorative items are becoming increasingly popular. This niche encompasses a wide range of home products, from decor to functional items.

Our Product Selection: Essential Oil Diffusers

Consumers use these diffusers for them to experience aromatic or therapeutic effects. We can see people using this item at home or in workplaces.

We can offer our customers variations like ultrasonic, nebulizer, fan-like, terracotta, and a lot more options. Also, these products come in different sizes and shapes, so bear in mind to offer many choices to cater to customer preferences.

Furthermore, include types that are electric–powered or heat–enabled ones. Also, we can add products of this category that come with automatic timers and diffusion controls.

Beginner’s Tip: We can offer this product in a set with essential oils as add-ons for a more affordable bundle price.

Congratulations! You now know the top trending product categories to dropship. From here, we can research for more trending categories and increase our profits in no time.

What Products Not To Sell

This business model allows us to sell almost any product we can think of. However, there are specific categories we should avoid to prevent the risk of our store being banned or, worse, facing legal issues. Let’s review the main categories we should steer clear of to maintain the legality and reputation of our business:

• Copyrighted Items: Unless they are brands that allow white labeling or have some sort of agreement in place, we must be careful not to infringe on any intellectual property.
• Age-Restricted Products: Although it may seem obvious, it’s worth reiterating that we cannot promote alcoholic beverages, tobacco, or pornography.
• Dangerous Goods: We need to be cautious with anything related to weapons, ammunition, or other products that could be considered dangerous for the buyer.
• Medicine or Supplements: Selling medical supplements may also infringe on certain regulations. To avoid these risks, we should do everything possible to avoid promoting these products.

While avoiding these products may seem intuitive, some tools can assist us in this task. If you import from the AutoDS marketplace, the detection system will automatically block intellectual property rights violations, and we will be notified when we infringe any rules.

Resources like the eBay VeRO Guide are also beneficial in these cases, as they list companies that own property rights to their products.

Best Tools For Starting A Dropshipping Business

When figuring out how to start a dropshipping business, working with the right tools is crucial. So, in this section, we will be learning about the best dropshipping tools that can help our online business step up:

• Customer service management
• Profit Calculator
• eCommerce Calendar
• AI dropshipping tools
• Mentorship Program

In eBay, we have the customer service management feature. Also, we can utilize the Profit Calculator for our eBay dropshipping stores.

Another dropshipping tool relevant to any selling channel is the AutoDS eCommerce Calendar. It is an excellent tool to see the coming holidays and prepare our dropshipping stores accordingly. The eCommerce holidays calendar also shows trending suggestions for each holiday to help us boost our sales.

On top of that, utilizing AI dropshipping tools to improve your business provides a different level of optimization that will help us maximize our sales. In fact, by utilizing AutoDS’ AI Title & Description generator we can optimize our listing titles and descriptions using AI. As a result, we can increase our conversion rate. Additionally, we can also take advantage of the AI Shopify Store Builder to utilize AI to build out a converting Shopify store in just minutes. As an added bonus, the AI-built Shopify store comes with proven winning products and read-to-sell pages.

Finally, AutoDS also has a Mentorship Program. It’s great for beginners that need help with getting their eBay dropshipping stores up and running.

Should I Register My Dropshipping Business?

Since we’re running a business that provides income, we must register it in the country that we live in.

While many dropshippers prefer not to register their business to avoid being taxed twice – on their day job and from dropshipping, it’s not worth the risk if we get caught. Therefore, we should register our business like any other.

Every country has its own set of rules for registering your business. Therefore, it’s wise to speak with a local accountant for more information on registering your business.

Do I Have To Pay Taxes?

Generally, governments worldwide require us to pay income taxes on every source of income. Therefore, we need to consult with a local accountant to understand the rules on taxation. For instance, when importing products to the UK, we need to settle the following taxes: VAT and Customs Duty. The VAT is charged at 20% when importing products to the UK. It is payable to the delivery company or upon collection of the parcel.

On the other hand, the Customs Duty is charged at around 2.5% on all packages exceeding £135. Also, we can pay around 10% tax whenever we purchase products from our suppliers. When buyers purchase from our selling channels like eBay, they get taxed by eBay and pay us the tax. Then, eBay deducts that tax from us.

Therefore, we fulfill tax obligations both when buying and when selling.

Mistakes To Avoid When Starting A Dropshipping Business

Figuring out how to start a dropshipping business is not always easy. When we are learning about how to start a dropshipping business, we may encounter bumps along the way. However, we can always prepare for the worst by taking into account these mistakes that we must avoid:

• Failing To Plan Correctly
• Not Knowing What Products To Sell
• Choosing Undependable Platforms
• Being Unprepared With The Amount Of Work
• Losing Focus

Failing To Plan

When starting a dropshipping business, we must always remember to have a good plan. To achieve this, we must equip ourselves with the necessary knowledge and skills before opening a dropshipping store.

Not Knowing What Products To Sell

Next, we must know what products we want to sell. Conducting product research and identifying trending items to sell can help us establish our stores and maximize our sales. Knowing what a specific market needs is the key to gaining sales and profits.

Choosing Undependable Platforms

Then, we need to choose the right selling channel for our needs and reliable suppliers. Working with suitable suppliers ensures our orders are fulfilled on time and provides our customers with an enjoyable shopping experience. Also, choosing the right selling channel enables us to conduct business based on our needs and budget. And lastly, selecting the right dropshipping tools can help us manage our businesses efficiently, So, make sure to choose the most reliable tools that we can work with smoothly.

Being Unprepared With The Demand Of Work

Additionally, we must be ready to put the time and effort into how to start our dropshipping business. Entering the eCommerce industry doesn’t guarantee overnight success, so we must work our way to success patiently.

Losing Focus

When running any business, we must establish our goals and focus on them. We must not let distractions get in our way towards higher sales and more significant profits.

At the end of the day, making mistakes from time to time is fine since no business is ever perfect at the start. However, we must always learn from these mistakes and avoid them as much as possible.

Frequently Asked Questions 

How Can A Beginner Start Dropshipping In 2025?

To start dropshipping in 2025 as a beginner the most important thing you need to do is solid product research, choose a selling channel and create your store, then fill it up with your chosen best-sellers, market your products properly and fulfill your customer orders as soon as they come in. 

What Are The Best Platforms For Dropshipping In 2025?

The best platforms for dropshipping in 2025 are Amazon, Shopify, Etsy, and TikTok Shops. While Amazon, Etsy, and TikTok Shops are open marketplaces with high competition, they also have tons of organic traffic and a massive active user base. On the other hand, Shopify is the most prominent eCommerce website that we can customize and brand based on our business needs. 

What Are The Common Challenges In Dropshipping?

The most common challenges in dropshipping is branding your products and store to build recognition. On top of that, it can also be difficult to find reliable suppliers with fast shipping. 

Can I Start Dropshipping With A Low Budget?

Yes! To start dropshipping with little to no budget, you can sell on open marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, Etsy, or TikTok Shops since no monthly subscription is required.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, dropshipping is a game changer in the world of eCommerce, offering high potential for achieving significant profit margins without risking too much money or time. If you follow the steps in this guide, you’ll be on the fast track much quicker than you might imagine! 

Remember that for this type of activity, it’s always beneficial to continue learning and progressing on your dropshipping journey. That’s why we’re sharing some articles that we believe can be helpful to you:

• Shopify AI Website Builder: Choose The Best Option
• Why Would Someone Buy From A Dropshipper Instead Of Amazon?
• How To Get Products For Your Online Store Like A Pro

Written by:

Manuel Rivero

As an experienced online business owner, Manuel leverages his background in eCommerce, SEO, and journalism to deliver practical and educational content solutions for the challenges facing entrepreneurs. He is dedicated to supporting dropshippers around the globe with experience-based insights while utilizing his expertise in marketing to ensure accurate and reliable information.

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