Ever wondered how to start a dropshipping business? Sometimes starting something new can sound complicated or overwhelming. Besides, new businesses usually require an upfront investment of money and time.
The good news is that starting a dropshipping business is both straightforward and low risk.
Furthermore, dropshipping is now one of the most sought-after and profitable eCommerce business models. Statista reports that in 2020, the dropshipping industry accounts for 128.6-billion US dollar market value worldwide. And that figure continues to grow each year.
That’s why in this article we’ll cover all the information needed to start a successful dropshipping business. So that we too can partake in the growing trend. Let’s begin!
What Is Dropshipping?
First, 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. Since we don’t have the expenses of holding inventory and only pay after getting paid, it requires a minimal start-up investment.
Basically, dropshipping works when customers start placing their orders in our stores. After settling the payments and choosing the delivery options, our dropshipping suppliers prepare the items for shipment. Finally, the suppliers ship the parcels to our customers.
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.
What Are The Benefits Of Starting A Dropshipping Business?
At this point, we know that dropshipping is a straightforward and promising venture to manage as long as we acquire the proper knowledge and skills. So, what are the benefits that make dropshipping stand out from other online businesses? Here are the answers:
- Low startup costs
- Work anywhere, anytime
- Pay only after getting paid
- No physical inventory required
- Easy to replace products that don’t sell
- Highly scalable
- Low entry barrier
Commencing our dropshipping adventure requires minimal working capital, so we don’t need to worry about huge losses. With a small amount of money, we can quickly scale our business into the global arena.
Moreover, we can work anywhere, anytime, since we can do everything online. To successfully run our dropshipping stores, all we need is a computer with a reliable internet connection.
There is no initial investment required for dropshipping. We only pay for the products we dropship after customers settle their orders. This feature makes dropshipping a low-risk, high-reward online venture.
Finally, we don’t need to maintain physical stocks of products that we sell. Therefore, we can save a hefty amount by eliminating storage and inventory costs. When a product isn’t selling well, we can simply replace it with another product since we didn’t purchase them in advance. However, before we start dropshipping, we must have an effective dropshipping business plan to achieve success. And, we need to keep in mind that there are some dropshipping challenges to tackle. But, it’s still well worth it to start dropshipping.
What Are The Best Dropshipping Selling Channels?
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.
Among the available sales channels in the market, the leading ones that we can work with are:
Let’s explore the main features and benefits of these selling channels:
Facebook Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace is new to the dropshipping scene. Therefore, we can score a huge opportunity to sell and scale on this platform.
Pros:
- Little competition with a small number of sellers
- Super low selling fees at 5% or $0.40 per transaction
- No startup costs
- No subscriptions are required. Simply head over to the Marketplace and start adding listings to sell.
- Easy and straightforward
Cons:
- Must be a US Citizen and resident to enable shipping options
If you want to learn more about dropshipping on Facebook, here is a step-by-step guide on How To Dropship On Facebook Marketplace.
Shopify/Wix
Shopify and Wix are some of the most popular customizable eCommerce selling platforms.
Pros:
- No selling limits
- Full customization of your online store
- Sell to almost any region in the world
Cons:
- Little to no organic traffic
- Monthly fees required after the two-week trial
Here is a Free Shopify Dropshipping Course to guide you on successfully dropshipping on Shopify.
eBay
eBay is one of the largest marketplaces with a vast selection of products that millions of customers visit every day.
Pros:
- Free organic traffic
- No store subscriptions up to 250 listings
Cons:
- Relatively high selling fees
- Fewer customization options
- Higher competition
Getting free organic traffic on your website can help you gain more sales since customers can freely land on your page from unpaid search results. To be able to list up to 250 items in your store for free allows us to offer customers diverse product choices. Also, we’ll only have expenses after we start profiting and not before.
Additionally, selling on eBay US has high competition. To lower the competition and increase sales, we can sell on eBay Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and other regions – regardless of where you live.
If you want to learn more about dropshipping on eBay, check out How To Dropship On eBay For Beginners.
Choosing the best-selling platform when starting our dropshipping business depends on our preferences. It is best to analyze our capacities and needs first since each selling channel has advantages and disadvantages for our online ventures.
How To Start A Dropshipping Business In 2023
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 in 2023:
- 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: Open A Selling Channel Account
- Step 7: Connect An Automation Software
- Step 8: Import Your Products
- Step 9: Launch Your Store
- Step 10: Market Your Products
- Step 11: Fulfill Orders
- Step 12: Provide Excellent Customer Service
- Step 13: Optimize Your Dropshipping Business
- Step 14: Run & Manage Your Business
At this point, let’s discuss each step and learn how to implement them in our selling channels – Facebook Marketplace, Shopify, and eBay.
1. Determine Your Starting Budget
Before starting a dropshipping business, we first need to determine our working capital. Subsequently, we have to identify which available selling platforms work best for our budget at hand.
Each selling channel has budget requirements with its corresponding features. Let’s dive into the details of these requirements in the following sections:
Facebook Marketplace Starting Budget: $0 – $200
Starting a dropshipping business in Facebook Marketplace needs no initial working budget. Therefore, this platform allows us to freely list items on our online stores.
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.
From these transactions, we can work with our cash flows better. Also, when our stores have consistent cash flows, we can scale our business and start selling more expensive and profitable products.
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 worth $29 per month after our 14-day trial.
Additionally, Shopify doesn’t offer free organic traffic. Therefore, we need to source traffic and include its costs in our budget. Some of the best traffic sources to consider are Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and Influencers.
Running Facebook/Google ad campaigns usually cost a minimum of $5 to $10 daily. To determine which ones bring more traffic to our stores, we must test several ad sets whenever needed. Moreover, Influencers commonly cost $50 to $100 per promotion of our business.
Furthermore, paid Shopify apps are available to help us convert viewers into buyers. Such apps are cart abandonment apps, email marketing, product reviews, upsells, and many more. Some of these programs offer free versions for us to try first before subscribing to their paid services.
eBay Starting Budget: $50 – $100
When selling on eBay, we need to start with about $50 to $100 as our budget. 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-in for 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. Otherwise, we’ll have to pay an insertion for each product listing beyond the stated free quantity.
A Basic Store subscription starts at $21.95 per month, and it allows us to list as many as 1,000 products.
2. Find Out Your Requirements
After securing our starting budget, we must meet the necessary requirements to start a dropshipping business.
For Facebook Marketplace, we must own an active Facebook account to start selling. Also, the platform requires US citizenship with a US IP address for verification when our sales exceed $500 and for us to deliver to 50 US states and enable shipping options.
For Shopify, we need to register for a Shopify account. From there, we can start building our dropshipping stores as long as we have enough budget for our store subscription and marketing.
Similarly, dropshipping in eBay requires no other requirements other than an eBay account and a working capital to pay for our first orders.
3. Choose A Selling Channel
Now that we know the requirements of our selling platforms, we can select the best-suited ones for our dropshipping venture.
With all the data presented previously, we can choose our selling channels based on their benefits and drawbacks, budget requirements, and general conditions.
Again, we must choose among the three most proven selling channels in dropshipping: Facebook Marketplace, Shopify, eBay, and Wix. While several other selling platforms are available, these are our top three recommendations to start a successful dropshipping career.
4. Find Products To Sell – Product Research
Once we have our selling channel, our next step is searching for trending products to sell in our stores.
Product research is an essential step in establishing your dropshipping business. Since our customers have varying needs, we must identify the products they will most likely buy from us.
Regardless of the selling channel that we’re utilizing, there are multiple ways to find best-selling products. Here are the general steps:
- Step 1: Search your supplier website
- Step 2: Use the new AutoDS Product Research System
- Step 3: Research your selling channel
Let’s dive deeper inside each step:
1. Search Your Supplier’s Website
First, going to supplier websites like Amazon or Walmart can land you on your next winning products. You can do this by looking at items with lots of good reviews. Find out which items are best sellers and keep your eyes on ‘New Releases’ to catch new product trends before your competition.
Another way of searching for popular items is by utilizing AliExpress Dropshipping Center. There, you can spot the hottest dropshipping items, analyze their performance, and get ideas of the next products to be on the lookout for.
To learn how to use this wonderful feature, check out this detailed article on the Aliexpress Dropshipping Center.
2. Use The New AutoDS Product Research System
Second, AutoDS offers a new program to help you search for high-selling items. The new integrated Product Research tool is a one-of-a-kind system that allows you to find and import trending items in your stores within seconds.
By using this feature, you can filter metrics like price, shipping time, warehouses, suppliers, popularity, and more. AutoDS is partnering with private and wholesale dropshipping suppliers soon, so stay tuned!
3. Research Your Selling Channel
Third, you can research your selling channels for the sought-after products today. You can look at trends on the selling channels or spy on what other sellers offer on your platform.
Here are ways to research the most popular selling channels:
Shopify
You can spy on other Shopify stores using the Koala Inspector. The application tells you what other dropshipping stores are selling, how much success they are attaining, where they’re getting their products, what apps they are using, and more.
With Koala Inspector, you can copy product ideas and test if they sell high and fast in your stores.
Tip: Remember that you don’t have to sell the same products as your competitors. Look for similar products to differentiate yourself from them, along with a unique Shopify store theme to stand out.
eBay
When working on eBay as your sales channel, you can use Zik Analytics to conduct in-depth eBay product research by finding the hottest selling items on eBay while learning from other sellers’ practices.
Zik Analytics is an automated product-finding software that lets you search for winning items from about 100 million product ideas to sell in your store.
Moreover, product suggestions of this tool are based on store analytics and price analytics. These analytics provide insights into your eBay stores’ performances and guide you on maximizing your products’ prices.
Facebook Marketplace
As a new selling channel, Facebook Marketplace is an untapped marketplace. Simply list bestsellers from your suppliers and there’s a high chance that they will sell. Since competition is low on this platform, you create your own selling trends.
When dropshipping on Facebook Marketplace, we can use any one of our suppliers and simply list their best-selling items. It’s that easy to make sales on the Facebook Marketplace as there is barely any competition there to this day.
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 over 25 suppliers with automation features such as:
- Price and stock monitoring
- Product importing
- Automated orders
6. Open A Selling Channel Account
At this juncture, it’s time to open an account with the selling channel we chose earlier and start dropshipping trending items in our stores.
Here are the steps on how to open an account for each leading selling channel:
Facebook Marketplace
Most people already have a Facebook account. If you don’t have an account yet, you must create one for yourself first.
Once you have a Facebook account, you will automatically have Marketplace features. Then, you can start offering your items for sale right away in the Marketplace.
Shopify
When opening an account in Shopify, go to their website and register for a 14-day free trial. Then, Shopify will prompt you to enter your online store’s name. You can connect your custom domain name if you have one or purchase one if you don’t.
After establishing your brand name, choose the template for your store and select a pricing plan according to your needs and budget. Shopify’s Basic Store starts at $29.
The subscription plan will only start charging you after the 14-day free trial. It is necessary to pick a pricing plan so that your store continues to be visible and accessible to shoppers. Otherwise, customers won’t see your online store even after the 14-day trial.
Note that your store will only go live after you subscribe to a monthly plan. The store is not live during and after the 14-day trial – only once you subscribe to a monthly plan.
eBay
To start dropshipping on eBay, head over to their website and click ‘Sell.’ Then, proceed by clicking ‘List Your First Item.’ It is advisable to register for a free eBay account when doing this.
After having an account, we can continue by setting up the payment settings and listing our first items.
7. Connect An Automation Software
After creating an account in our selling channels, we must connect to dropshipping automation software.
The automation of our dropshipping business saves time and effort and prevents errors in our transactions. It allows us to spend our time and effort expanding our business instead. With automation, we don’t need to worry about manually running our stores all day long.
AutoDS is a leading dropshipping automation software in the market. The program works with numerous suppliers and selling channels to help your dropshipping career. It is an efficient way to manage your dropshipping business at the convenience of your home.
To start automating your online store through AutoDS, go through these steps:
- Go to AutoDS.com
- Click on ‘Start now for $1’
- Create an account
- Pick your selling channel
- Select starter store
- Fill in payment information
- Connect your store to AutoDS
8. 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.
The importing of 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 its 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 completes, 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.
9. Launch Your Store
After successfully importing trending items to our selling channels, it’s finally time to launch our dropshipping stores! By doing this, our online stores become visible to our audience.
Here are the details on how to launch our dropshipping stores using different selling platforms:
Facebook Marketplace
As soon as we list our first products, our stores become live. Then, anyone can go in and start purchasing our goods.
eBay
Like Facebook Marketplace, our stores become live after creating our first listings. Now, customers can search eBay for what they’re looking for, find our listings, and purchase them.
Shopify
Shopify requires more work before launching our stores, unlike the two other selling channels. The whole store should be ready – front page, legal pages, product pages, theme, layout, checkout settings, shipping zones, and more.
After setting up the necessary features, we can go live with our stores and start marketing our products.
Don’t forget that we have a Free Shopify Course that goes over all of the details on how to launch a successful Shopify store.
10. Market Your Products
After launching our dropshipping stores, the next step is to market our products. Proper marketing of our dropshipping items can help us scale our business and increase sales.
Shopify
- Facebook/Google Ads
- Influencer Marketing
- Email Marketing
When managing Shopify stores, we can market our products through Facebook Ads or Instagram Influencers. Here are 10 Influencer Marketing Platforms for Finding and Partnering with Internet Influencers that can help us promote our Shopify stores.
eBay
- Promoted Listings Standard
- eBay PPC
We can promote our products on eBay in multiple ways, but our favorite and most effective method is the new eBay PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign.
Facebook Marketplace
- Posting in buy and sell groups
- Adding promotion to listings
Finally, we can market our products on Facebook Marketplace by posting in buy and sell groups and adding promotions to our listings. In our Facebook Marketplace Dropshipping Case Study: Day 10 video, we go over how to do just that, so be sure to check it out.
11. Fulfill Orders
When customers start buying products from our online store, we must fulfill and deliver their orders quickly.
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 buy 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.
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!
12. Provide Excellent Customer Service
Our commitment as dropshippers doesn’t end when we deliver parcels to our customers. In order to gain customer trust, we must extend excellent customer service even after order fulfillment.
When we meet customers’ expectations, there will be a higher chance of them repurchasing from our stores in the future. Also, offering a dependable service can likely give us high satisfaction ratings, further improving our social proof for the long run.
Here are ways on how to offer superb customer support to our customers:
eBay
The customer support feature is synchronized with your eBay messages’ inbox. It helps organize and manage your messages on AutoDS instead of going to eBay.
This section lets you reply to customers, cases and create chat snippets. With this feature, you can easily manage customer service from all your eBay stores under one screen.
Shopify
Regularly check your buyer’s messages through the Shopify dashboard. You can also collect their email address to your email marketing list. Make sure to offer the best customer service to ensure repeat customers.
Facebook Marketplace
All of your buyer’s messages will show up in your inbox (FB Messenger). Check your messages once in a while to capture more leads. Sometimes, buyers ask simple questions just to see that someone is on the other side to answer them. Then, they complete the purchase.
13. Optimize Your Dropshipping Business
To further improve our dropshipping business, we can optimize our stores using these features on the different selling channels:
Shopify
- Privacy settings
- Business policies
- Website optimization
- Trust badges
- Selling techniques
You can set your privacy settings and business policies in your Shopify stores. Moreover, you can optimize product pages to become more enticing to shoppers. Also, the use of high-quality images can make your page more professional.
Furthermore, displaying trust badges on your website can give customers the confidence that you’re offering them high-quality products. Learn more on How To Gain Customer Trust For Shopify Dropshipping and apply these tips to your Shopify store.
Furthermore, we have various selling techniques like upselling and cross-selling. Upselling means persuading customers to buy a more expensive product than their original choice. While cross-selling is convincing customers to have add-on items and accessories to their purchase.
To help you improve the sales conversion on your Shopify store, here are the 10 Ways to Boost Your Shopify Product Page Conversions.
eBay
- Selling limits
- Business Policies
You can increase selling limits in your eBay store as you gain more sales. Take note that eBay limits our listing amounts at the start. So, you must work your way on increasing limits as early as you can, so you can gain more profits quickly.
For more information, read the eBay Selling Limits article to guide you on how to increase your store’s selling limits.
Another way of optimizing your eBay store is to create business policies. These policies give buyers information regarding shipping locations, speeds, and costs. The faster your shipping time, the more eBay will promote your listing above others. Therefore, it’s a good way to optimize your listings and get more sales.
Just be sure to use the right shipping and handling times. If we don’t send out our products on time according to our policies, our seller metrics will decrease as will our sales.
Read our article on How To Set eBay Business Policies to guide you on creating the right dropshipping policies for products in US and China.
Facebook Marketplace
- Many product listings
- Page optimization
Optimize your dropshipping business in Facebook Marketplace by adding as many product listings as possible. Since you’re not paying any subscription fee or for listing many items, it can help increase your sales and profits in no time.
Furthermore, optimize your product pages to look professional to engage shoppers. To do this, you can utilize AutoDS’ built-in advanced image editor.
14. Run & Manage Your Business
Now that our dropshipping businesses are up and running, anything is possible.
Running and managing our businesses can require time and effort. Dropshipping processes like importing products, monitoring stocks and prices, and fulfilling orders can be tiresome when done manually.
To do away with these issues, we can use dropshipping automation, so we can dedicate our time and effort to growing our dropshipping empires instead.
Continue expanding your dropshipping business by regularly researching trending items and adding more product listings to our stores. Don’t forget to remove those slow-movers to make room for more products that will sell. If ou want to learn additional strategies to scale your business faster, you can learn from other dropshipping websites.
The Best Dropshipping Products And 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 dropshipping niches 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:
1. Pet Car Seat Covers
Our first trending category is the pet car seat covers. Animal lovers can now enjoy traveling with their pets without worrying much about unwanted rips or specks of dirt on their car seats.
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 different sizes and needs of pets.
Beginner’s Tip: Include variations with water-proof linings for an added layer of protection.
2. Food Storage Organizers
The second profitable product category is food storage 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.
3. Camping Hammocks
Camping Hammocks make it to our third top-grade product category. 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.
4. Insect Traps
The fourth product category that can help us gain quick sales is the insect trap category. This item idea helps customers minimize or eliminate unwanted insects indoor and outdoor. 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.
5. Essential Oil Diffusers
The essential oil diffuser is the fifth and last product category. While there are many more categories to sell, these are our top recommendations.
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
Dropshipping gives us access to a wide range of top-selling products to offer in our stores. However, not all items we find online are suitable for our eCommerce business.
Therefore, as dropshippers, exercising due diligence is crucial when picking the right products to sell in our online stores. With that being said, we should avoid dropshipping prohibited or illegal products. Specifically, we must not sell items under these categories:
- Copyrighted items
- Age-restricted products
- Dangerous goods
- Medicine or supplements
1. Copyrighted Items
Generally, we shouldn’t resell copyrighted items, since they are protected by intellectual property rights. It’s illegal to offer products under this category without prior permission or legal acknowledgment from brand owners or manufacturers.
2. Age-restricted Products
Likewise, selling age-restricted items is prohibited when dropshipping. For example, we cannot sell pornographic materials, liquors, and tobacco. Since it’s difficult to verify a customer’s age, it’s best not to sell any item from these product categories.
3. Dangerous Goods
Similarly, we should not sell dangerous goods as they are usually regulated by laws in most countries. In some cases, these products need licenses or permits before they can be used. Particularly, weapons, ammunition, and other life-threatening devices are considered dangerous goods.
4. Medicine Or Supplements
Just like dangerous goods, medical supplies or supplements follow certain regulations. As such, only medical practitioners or experts can legally dispense medicines or supplements. Thus, we shouldn’t offer these items in our stores, however, we can sell medical supplies like pill organizers.
What Happens When We Sell Prohibited Items
If we sell illegal products, our dropshipping stores can face legal sanctions. For instance, selling prohibited goods on eBay can get our stores suspended indefinitely. In other cases, we can be subject to financial penalties when owners sue us for selling their copyrighted products.
eBay VeRO With AutoDS
So, how do we check if what we’re selling is legal? For one, we can check out the eBay VeRO Guide which gives us a list of brands or companies that enforce copyrights on their products. Plus, this guide stipulates the proper procedure for appealing against VeRO suspensions.
Although, there can be times when we’re not fully aware of the copyrights of the items we’re listing. But, don’t worry, since AutoDS is here to protect us from adding illegal products to our stores.
Essentially, AutoDS has a detection system that blocks intellectual property rights-protected products from importing to our dropshipping stores. Through this feature, we will be notified if the product we’re trying to add is illegal, thus, protecting our business.
Furthermore, by continuously avoiding selling prohibited items, we can continue running our business legally. Thus, we can claim an exemplary business reputation with our customers and our selling channels.
Finally, there are endless product ideas in the market that we can dropship legally. With this in mind, we must only sell items that follow dropshipping rules and can help us gain high profits.
What Are The Best Tools For Starting A Dropshipping Business?
Working with the right tools is crucial when starting a dropshipping business. 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
- 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.
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 are fulfilling tax obligations both ways – when buying, and when selling.
To better understand your tax obligations no matter where you live or where you want to dropship to/from, we recommend reading Dropshipping Taxes: A Beginner’s Guide.
Mistakes To Avoid When Starting A Dropshipping Business
Starting a dropshipping business is not always easy. 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
Here’s an explanation of each of these factors:
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 we want to sell these products to. Conducting product research and identifying trending items to sell can help us establish our stores. Knowing what a specific market needs is the key to gaining sales and profits.
Choosing Undependable Platforms
Then, we must understand that working with suitable suppliers and selling channels can help us achieve success in dropshipping. Also, selecting the right dropshipping tools can help us manage our businesses efficiently, So, make sure to choose the most reliable entities and tools that we can work with smoothly.
Being Unprepared With The Demand Of Work
Additionally, we must be ready with the time and effort we need to offer into our dropshipping venture. Entering the eCommerce industry doesn’t guarantee overnight success, so we must work our way to success patiently.
Losing Focus
When running just any business, we must establish our goals and focus on them. We must not let distractions hinder our ways towards higher sales and more significant profits.
At the end of the day, committing errors 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.
Conclusion
Pat yourself on the back for making it this far! It shows that you’re serious about launching a successful business. All that’s left now is to take action and start running your dropshipping stores.
Overall, dropshipping is a low-risk and easy business to run. However, dropshipping is not an overnight success. In order to win in this field, we have to gain proper knowledge and work with the right tools.
Establishing our dropshipping stores is only a start. We can expand our dropshipping business by researching more product ideas and gaining higher profits.
Now that you know the basics of how to start a dropshipping business, continue improving your dropshipping knowledge, with these articles:
