Dropshipping has been around for a while, but is dropshipping worth it in 2023? The truth is that dropshipping can be a great way to get into the eCommerce game without spending thousands of dollars on products upfront.
In fact, more and more entrepreneurs are starting dropshipping stores, hoping to establish a successful online business. Furthermore, many see great results and are already planning for the upcoming year.
So, this article will help us understand what makes dropshipping profitable and how to maximize our profits. By the end, we will figure out the profitability of dropshipping in 2023.
What Is Dropshipping And How Does It Work?
Dropshipping is a fulfillment method where retailers do not keep the products they sell in stock. Instead, when a retailer receives an order from a customer, they purchase the item from a third party that ships it directly.
For example, let’s assume we start selling sports shoes for $100. Next, we receive an order from the customers who pay us immediately.
After the customer pays for the shoes, we order them from one of the shoe suppliers for a wholesale price of $70, earning $30 in profit. As long as we have the right product in our store, we can attract customers. And, fulfilling their demand swiftly can help us earn higher profits.
Is Dropshipping Worth It In 2023?
The first thing that jumps out on the graph above is that dropshipping is absolutely worth it in 2023 and beyond. According to the report, the global retail and dropshipping industry will top $500 billion by 2025 and grow by 8% yearly.
The exponential growth on the chart clearly shows that dropshipping is a profitable industry. What’s more, the profit potential will only increase year by year. With that said, let’s go over some of the benefits of the dropshipping model:
- Little to no upfront investment
- Low-risk & high-reward
- Scalability
With these benefits, we can remain assured that we can Start & Run A Successful Dropshipping Business In 2023. Let’s learn about these benefits in detail below.
Factors That Make Dropshipping A Rewarding Business
Before we start dropshipping, it’s essential to know about the profitability of the dropshipping business model. Therefore, let’s review the benefits of dropshipping:
- Easy to start
- Additional income source
- Minimal investment
- Dropshipping Automation
Essentially, dropshipping business is very easy to start. As we can sell without holding inventory of the product, we get to keep most of our profit without overhead fees. Therefore, it allows us to gain an additional income source.
Additionally, dropshipping is a low-cost business model that enables us to begin with small to no capital. And, we only pay for the products once we sell them. Hence, the risks are minimal.
Gradually, we can scale our business by listing and fulfilling demands. Furthermore, we can also automate our business processes instead of doing laborious and boring manual tasks.
How To Start A Money-Making Dropshipping Business
There’s no doubt that the dropshipping industry is seeing rapid growth and getting bigger. Therefore, we can carve out our market share by using innovative marketing techniques, listing templates, engaging product titles, and attractive images.
Generally, if we’re looking to make money from a dropshipping business, then we must follow these seven steps:
- Find Best-Sellers: Product Research
- Select A Reliable Dropshipping Supplier
- Set Up Your Store: Choose A Selling Channel
- Import Products To Your Dropshipping Store
- Market Your Dropshipping Products
- Fulfill Customer Orders
- Stay In Touch: Provide Exceptional Customer Service
Let’s learn about each of these steps in detail.
1. Find Best Sellers: Product Research
The first step is to research and find good products to sell in our store. Choosing the right products means building a solid foundation for our online business. With that in mind, here are some excellent product research techniques to find in-demand products:
- AutoDS Product Research Tool
- Spy On The Competition
- Search Supplier Best-Sellers
- Google Trends & Google Lens
- Social Media Trends (e.g., #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt)
- Dropshipping Ads (keep track of competitors ads with high engagement rates)
Among these strategies, one of the most advanced methods is the AutoDS Product Research tool. With this tool, we can instantly find thousands of trending products from US and Chinese suppliers. Additionally, we can also import the products directly into our store and perform one-click returns with the same platform.
After we have a solid list of products, we can further narrow them down using a product research spreadsheet. This ensures we only have products with high potential to sell.
2. Select A Reliable Dropshipping Supplier
Another tip to achieve dropshipping success in 2023 is to work with reliable and multiple suppliers. In general, we need reliable suppliers to deliver quality products to our customers on time. Also, working with multiple suppliers allows us to access a large selection of products.
So, let’s look at some factors to consider when choosing a reliable dropshipping supplier:
- International warehouses
- Wide product range
- Practical return, shipping, and payment policies
- Affordable & quality products
- Positive reviews
- Excellent customer service
As long as our suppliers check off these boxes, we can ensure we get products from a trustworthy source. On the other hand, AutoDS also has plenty of supported suppliers that provide strong support for our dropshipping business.
3. Set Up Your Store: Choose A Selling Channel
The next step is to pick a selling channel to sell our products on. Generally, there are two types of selling channels: marketplaces and customizable eCommerce platforms.
On the one hand, customizable eCommerce platforms allow us to customize our stores with personalized user interfaces, templates, and designs. On the other hand, eCommerce marketplaces are trading platforms with readily available traffic.
Here are some examples of selling channels according to their types:
Customizable Platforms
eCommerce Marketplaces
Also, the above-listed selling channels easily synchronize with AutoDS. That means we can use AutoDS’s rich text editor and advanced image editor to create and optimize the product pages. On top of that, we can also use ready-made templates to enhance customers’ user experience.
4. Import Products To Your Dropshipping Store
The fourth step is importing products to our stores from our suppliers. Essentially, there are two methods to import products into our store: manually and automatically.
With manual importing, we have to copy every product’s details such as titles, images, descriptions, and variations. All in all, it is a time-consuming process that can be solved by automatic importing.
To clarify, automatic importing extracts the product’s details automatically and updates our listing instantly. This method helps us save plenty of time and effort. In general, there are four different importing features of the AutoDS product importing tool:
- One-click Importer
- Single Product Importer
- Multiple Product Importer
- Bulk Upload with a CSV file
Here is a demonstration of how we can import products automatically with the one-click importer feature.
First, we have to install the AutoDS Helper Extension in our browser. After installing the extension, go to the supplier’s website and find the product you want to import.
To begin the process, click on the “Import to AutoDS” button just above the product title. This allows the importer tool to extract the product’s details instantly.
Then, the importer tool uploads data into the drafts page of the AutoDS platform. To elaborate, we upload products to the drafts page to optimize our listing before publishing them.
After we optimize our product listing on the drafts page, click on “Import,” and the tool will publish the listing in your store. Overall, the whole process takes comparatively less time and manual labor.
Hence, we can rely on the AutoDS product-importing tool to scale our business rapidly.
5. Market Your Dropshipping Products
Next, we need to market our dropshipping store. With marketing, we can drive more traffic to our stores, increasing our chances of sales. Additionally, it also helps us stand out from the crowd and creates brand awareness.
With that said, here are some marketing techniques to promote our products on various selling channels.
Shopify, Wix, and WooCommerce
- PPC Ads
- Influencer Marketing
- Content Marketing (blogs)
- Social Media Posts
- Email Marketing
eBay
- Promoted Listings Standard
- Promoted Listings Advanced
- Volume Pricing
- Order Discounts
Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Shops
- Facebook and Instagram promotions
- Buy & Sell Groups
With these strategies, we can market our products from any of the above selling channels.
6. Fulfill Customer Orders
Next, we must fulfill customer orders on time and with accuracy is a must. To fulfill customers’ orders, we have three methods: manual, automatic orders, and Fulfilled by AutoDS.
To clarify, manual fulfillment means going to the suppliers’ website and purchasing customers’ orders along with inputting the delivery address.
On the other hand, Automated Orders fulfills all our customer’s orders by using our buyer accounts automatically. To clarify, buyer accounts are our accounts on the supplier’s website with our preferred payment method.
Similarly, Fulfilled by AutoDS is another great automation feature that fulfills our customer’s orders without using our buyer accounts. Instead, AutoDS uses its personal buyer accounts to order products from the supplier’s website.
In both of the automatic methods, tracking information is automatically sent to our customers. On top of that, both methods show the order status of the purchase.
7. Stay In Touch: Provide Exceptional Customer Service
When we are dropshipping, taking care of our customers is a crucial step. Without excellent customer service, our business may suffer from poor conversion rates, unhappy customers, and lots of lost customers.
With that in mind, the final step integral to our dropshipping stores’ success is to provide excellent customer service. Therefore, here are some ways to provide exceptional customer service:
- Handle customer queries and complaints instantly
- Process returns and refunds promptly
- Send personalized messages
- Include a FAQ page
- Use a customer service management software
With these techniques, we can provide a positive customer experience to our buyers. As such, it leads to a solid customer base and lots of customer referrals.
All in all, these seven steps are crucial for our dropshipping business. And, we can remain assured that we will see plenty of profits if we follow these steps.
What Are The Most Profitable Products To Dropship?
Luckily, there are countless profitable products to choose from in many different categories. Here are the most profitable products to dropship that will get us started on the right path:
- Toys
- Health and Fitness
- Pet Products
- Home Decor and Home Improvements
- Jewelry
- Automotive accessories (e.g., Car seat)
- Patio, Lawn, and Garden
We can never go wrong with selling trending products, and staying updated with the latest trends is vital. Also, we can get excellent dropshipping income with products that are just coming into popularity.
This way, we can ride the early wave of success our product will see before it becomes an eCommerce trend.
Beginner’s Tip: Try out High Ticket Dropshipping. Selling more expensive items, like a desk, can yield a much higher dropshipping profit margin. 20% of $2000 is a much better profit than 20% of $40.
Who Are The Most Successful Dropshippers?
If you are wondering how much dropshippers make, let’s see some real-life examples. Rafael Cintron, a successful dropshipper from Puerto Rico built a 7 figure e-commerce business by the age of 25. Surprisingly, Rafael started working as a freelancer for a Shopify-based eCommerce store in 2017.
There, he learned all the basics of dropshipping firsthand and saw how profitable dropshipping is. Afterward, Rafael quit his 9-5 job to make profits for himself rather than for his employer.
Another excellent example of a successful sensation earning excellent dropshipping income on Shopify is a 14-year-old Nehorai Klein from Shoham, Israel.
Nehorai proved that age was just a number when he started his first online business on eBay at the age of 12. Now based in Shopify, his online store is named ‘the dream room,’ which sells wall decals and other home decor items targeting the Israeli market.
Here is a special video where we can gain insight into dropshipping from an expert:
What Is A Good Profit Margin For Dropshipping?
Wondering how much is an ideal dropshipping profit margin? A general formula to know this is:
Profit Margin = [(Revenue-Cost) / Revenue] * 100
In a nutshell, the profit margin is the amount of money that is left after we subtract expenses from our business revenues. To clarify, some examples of dropshipping expenses include selling channel fees, subscription fees, and marketing costs.
Comparatively, the profit range is significantly higher for dropshippers than for traditional retailers. And, it mainly depends on our niche, target audience, and competition.
Essentially, we can test different profit margins when selling products from our store. While profit margins can range between 15% – 60%, we can achieve more once we gain enough experience.
How To Boost Your Dropshipping Profits With Automation
Aside from picking the right products and setting good margins, we can use dropshipping automation tools like AutoDS to increase profits. To elaborate, automation allows us to save time and effort by having software do most of the work.
With the saved time, we can focus on scaling our business by optimizing our stores and adding more products. Additionally, automation also reduces errors while importing products and filling in shipping details.
With that in mind, here are the automation features of AutoDS:
- Quick & Easy Product Imports
- Complete Order Fulfillment
- Price/Stock Monitoring
- Automatic Price Optimization
- Inventory Management
- and more!
Overall, these features help automate the tiresome process of manual dropshipping with perfect results. Moreover, it allows us to focus on other vital tasks to grow our business to new heights.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Dropshipping Dead In 2023?
Dropshipping is not dead in 2023. Due to the huge demand for products online, dropshipping is here to stay in 2023 and beyond.
Is Dropshipping A Profitable Business?
Yes, dropshipping is a profitable business. The huge dropshipping market size combined with the low-risk business model makes dropshipping a highly lucrative business.
How Much Do Dropshippers Make?
In general, average dropshipping profit can range anywhere from 15% – 60%. Moreover, we can enjoy even more profits by increasing prices after consistent sales.
What Is An Average Dropshipping Income?
Dropshippers typically make around $1000-$5000 per month, or more if they handle business well. However, maintaining a profitable store depends on our stores having highly sought-after products, proper marketing, effective sales platforms, and repeat customers.
Conclusion
There we go! Now, we have all the knowledge about the future of dropshipping in 2023. And now is your time to start because today’s investments are tomorrow’s returns. Also, stay ahead of the competition by collaborating with trustable suppliers and using an effective automation tool.
However, there are no ceilings to achieving tremendous success if you have all the correct information and reasonable effort. So, here are some guides and articles to help you along the way:
