How To Start A Dropshipping Business: A Complete Guide

With eCommerce taking over the way we shop, we can take advantage of the golden age of online selling to start a dropshipping business. Starting a dropshipping business can be an exciting venture for aspiring entrepreneurs looking to break into eCommerce without the burdens of inventory management. But we need to know how to start a dropshipping business. This business model offers a low-risk entry point, allowing us to focus on marketing and customer service while a third-party supplier handles storage and shipping. 

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the essential steps for how to start a dropshipping business. We’ll also share valuable tips to optimize your operations and highlight strategies that can help you stand out in a competitive marketplace. Whether you’re a seasoned seller or just starting, this article will provide the insights you need to build a successful dropshipping business.

What Is Dropshipping?

Amazingly, 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. 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. It’s not very difficult to figure out how to start a dropshipping business.

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 learn how to start a dropshipping business. 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 our products. We can save a hefty amount by eliminating storage and inventory costs. And, when a product isn’t selling well, we can replace it with another since we didn’t purchase it in advance. However, before we start dropshipping, we must have a solid business plan and learn how to start a dropshipping business to succeed.

Cons Of Starting A Dropshipping Business

Notably, there are also some dropshipping challenges that we might need to tackle.  In fact, some of the dropshipping cons we might face when we are learning how to start a dropshipping business are: 

• Difficult to build a brand
• Finding winning products 
• Finding high-quality suppliers with fast shipping
• Knowing where to sell & how to start

Since the suppliers we work with fulfill and ship out our orders, it’s challenging to brand them. So, it’s more difficult to build a brand and build recognition. 

Plus, the biggest sales driver is having a product catalog filled with best-sellers, which can be difficult to find. On top of that, it can be hard to find a reliable supplier with fast shipping times. But, AutoDS has a Winning Products Hub filled with proven best-sellers and works with reliable and trustworthy suppliers. 

Lastly, any new venture can be intimidating, even dropshipping. So, figuring out how to start and where to sell is stressful. But, as we go through this guide, we’ll find all of our concerns answered with helpful guidance. Ultimately, AutoDS has all the tools necessary to help us tackle any dropshipping challenge.

Why Start Dropshipping?

We’ve learned that dropshipping is a low-risk eCommerce model with little to no upfront investment and a lot of profit potential. Because of this, it has become a lucrative business for entrepreneurs. In fact, the dropshipping market is increasing exponentially, predicted to rise from $128.6 billion in 2020, to $476.1 billion in 2026. So, it’s safe to say that dropshipping has a lot of potential, and we need to learn how to start a dropshipping business. 

Plus, with the convenience of working from anywhere at any time, this business model gives dropshippers a lot of freedom to scale. So, after going over the convenience and ease of starting a dropshipping business and all the benefits that come with it as well as how profitable it can be, now it’s up to us to get the ball rolling.

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. 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
• Shopify
• Amazon
• Etsy
• Facebook Marketplace / FB Shops
• Woocommerce
• Wix

eBay

eBay is well known for being one of the most well-supplied and diverse online shopping sites. 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 helps business 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 manage our store to stand out from the competition. 

Pros: 

• Hosted platform
• Customization options
• Professional templates  
• Shipping discounts
• Customer service 
• Buy dropshipping stores 

Cons: 

• Transaction fees 
• No organic traffic 
• Online credit card fees 
• Inflexible exit strategy 

Amazon

If we use Amazon as our selling channel, 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 it’s 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 

WooCommerce

Now, WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin for WordPress. With WooCommerce, we can create and customize a dropshipping 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 for being a website builder, and with that, we have the opportunity to create and build an e-commerce store. Furthermore, Wix is a great 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 dropshipping, 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 Shops

TikTok has taken the world by storm building out a massive active user-base. Because of this, TikTok Shops is an awesome selling channel to utilize so that we can take advantage of the tons of organic traffic and viral potential of the platform.

Pros: 

• Huge potential to go viral 
• Huge active user-base 
• Trendy marketplace 
• Engaging content format 
• Built-in eCommerce tools

Cons: 

• High competition
• Limited branding 
• Compliance and regulations

Ultimately, no matter which one of these selling channels we choose, they’re all supported by AutoDS – making dropshipping a lot easier for us.

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 at hand. 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 worth $29 per month after our 14-day trial.

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 and are becoming mandatory for Amazon sellers. 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: 

• The initial fee for a single UPC is $30, with no annual renewal fees
• The initial fee for 10 UPC is $250, with a $50 annual renewal fee
• The initial fee for 100 UPC is $750, with a $150 annual renewal fee

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 $15 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.

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.

Step 3: Choose A Selling Channel

Now that we have all the information we need, we can choose our selling channels that fit our business needs. In fact, we can choose based on their benefits and drawbacks, budget requirements, and general conditions.

To see success, we need to choose from the most proven selling channels in dropshipping: Facebook Marketplace/Shops, Shopify, eBay, Amazon, WooCommerce, Wix, Etsy. While several other selling platforms are available, these are our top recommendations to start a successful dropshipping career.

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, Temu, 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 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. 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 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 pets’ different sizes and needs.

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 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.

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, as we learn how to start a dropshipping business, we’ll learn that 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:

1. Copyrighted items
2. Age-restricted products
3. Dangerous goods
4. 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. 

Notably, if we decide to dropship on the TikTok Shop, the list of forbidden products will be tricky, and we highly recommend reading our TikTok Shop guide to further understand what is best to avoid or be careful with when dropshipping on TikTok.

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.

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 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

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

And there we have it! We’ve covered all the steps on how to start a dropshipping business giving us the tools to kick off our store. On top of that, we’ve run down the fact that dropshipping has tons of pros, like a low-risk, and low investment with high-profit potential, while also looking at some of the downsides. We’ve also taken a look at the best-selling niches and products that will help us boost sales. Now, it’s safe to say that dropshipping is a worthwhile venture for any entrepreneur.

And, to help us out in our dropshipping journey, check out these helpful articles:

• Shopify AI Website Builder: Choose The Best Option
• Why Would Someone Buy From A Dropshipper Instead Of Amazon?
• How To Start Dropshipping On TikTok Shop In 2024