If you want to start your own business but don’t know what to do, you can try dropshipping to start. Dropshipping is a business model with low risk and high returns. It’s the perfect choice for beginners.
According to the data, the global dropshipping market is forecast to reach $476.10 billion in 2026. Though dropshipping is a tested business model with low risk, you shouldn’t start without knowing any prior knowledge.
Running a successful dropshipping business requires you to look after from selecting the product to improving customer satisfaction. It’s a business that you need to put time and energy into it.
In this article, we’ll show you 16 dropshipping tips, hoping the tips will make your dropshipping business blossom.
Page overview:
16 Tips for success in dropshipping
2. Choose the best-sell niche products
6. Import 25 items for the first time
7. Keep an eye on the inventory
8. Improve customer satisfaction
9. Enhance your marketing strategy
10. Set a clear policy for your business
12. Try multiple selling strategies
13. Build a highly recognizable brand
14. Make sure your website is user-friendly
15. Ready to pivot your business approach
16. Be active online and offline
What is dropshipping?
Since you decide to start your dropshipping business, it’s important to know what is dropshipping. Dropshipping is a business model in which you can run your store without inventory.
Dropshipping is one of the best business models for beginners. You don’t need to invest in high startup costs, and no inventory request will lower the risk that products pile up in the warehouse. Moreover, you can change products easily and decide your product’s price all by yourself, which leads to high profit margins.
How dropshipping works?
Here’s how the dropshipping business works step by step.
- Research and choose a niche: Choosing a category of product you want to sell.
- Select a platform: Selecting an e-commerce platform to sell your product. The popular e-commerce platform like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Amazon.
- Choose a supplier: Looking for a supplier who offers dropshipping services and products you want to sell. EPROLO, a forever free droshipping platform with superb branding services. EPROLO provides all-in-one supply chain, automated dropshipping business model, and a range of products at wholesale price. It’ll be a perfect start for your dropshipping business by choosing EPROLO.
- Set up your store: Set up your store on an e-commerce platform and connect with your supplier. After that, you can start to import products to your store.
- Start marketing: Using multiple marketing strategies like social media or search engine optimization to drive traffic to your store.
- Fulfill the orders: After receiving the orders from your customers, you just need to transfer the orders to your suppliers. Your supplier will take charge of fulfilling the orders.
- Monitor performance: Regularly check your store’s performance and make a change to become more profitable.
16 Tips for success in dropshipping
1. Pick up a niche
A business niche is a segment which products and services are in demand. Choosing the right niche will decrease the competition, and you will have more opportunities to stand out from the huge market.
- Identify your passion
Choosing a niche related to your passion is smart. When you truly enjoy what you’re doing, you’re more likely to keep growing in this field. - Find out the problems you can solve
The main goal of any business is to solve customer’s problems. Take your time to think about what kind of problem you can solve, and see if have a market opportunity. - Test your ideal niche
You may not find the best niche for the first time. You can try to find and test some potential niches. Talk to your potential customers, knowing their reviews, specific needs, and expectations.
Choosing and focusing on one niche will not only help you to stand out from the huge market but also help you to become an expert in this field as long as you keep learning the related knowledge.
2. Choose the best-sell niche products
After you choose the niche, it’s time to select your niche products. Choosing the best-selling products means you are already halfway to success. Here are some ways to help you find the ideal products.
- Google Trend
Google Trend is widely used for searching products, and many dropshippers use it to find trending products. You can also use Google Trend for searching a niche product as a reference. - Product catalogs
E-commerce platforms such as Shopify, eBay, and Amazon always provide product catalogs for customers, and you can search for the best-selling products and high-potential products through catalogs. - Social media
People like to review the products they receive on social media, and you can find the review videos about your niche product. In this way, you’re able to know what customers think about the product and their expectations, then find a better product.
Many dropshippers will make a mistake that they will sell the trending product when they start to dropship. The truth is some trending products are already saturated in the marketplace, and it’s hard to stand out yourself. In this case, you could use these three ways to find a potential product or analyze the next trending products.
3. Monitor your competitors
Many dropshippers easily get themselves into a dilemma that monitoring their competitors means copying them, and it’s an unacceptable behavior. In fact, monitoring them is not for copying, but to know what they are doing, and analyze it for our business.
- Product
You can start by searching your competitor’s product, and you’ll learn what kind of products are best for selling. Then, you could try to analyze the pros and cons of the product, deciding to sell the same product or find a better complementary product. - Social media
It’s also important to analyze their social media account, you’ll learn how your competitor market their product, their marketing strategy, and what kind of content they make for their customer. - Website
The website is the best place for you to know the whole brand. You can try to research your competitor’s website, including the design, integration, and valuable information. Monitoring your competitor’s website to help you clarify what kind of website and brand you want to build.
4. Choose a reliable supplier
It’s imperative to choose a reliable supplier. Dropshipping is a business model in which you choose your goods from a third-party, and your customers won’t know about it. This means you need to take the blame if an unpleasant situation happens. Therefore, choosing a reliable supplier will decrease the situation and give you confidence in solving the problem with your customers.
You could choose the suppliers based on:
- Shipping cost and time
Shipping cost and speed are considered key factors for online shoppers to shop with an e-commerce brand again. Therefore, lower shipping costs and faster shipping times are crucial for selecting a supplier. Choosing a supplier who has a warehouse in your target market will help to decrease the shipping cost and let your customers receive their products faster. - Customer service
As mentioned, the customers won’t know where the goods are from, so you need to take the blame when the order is mistaken. The suppliers provide great customer service will also build your confidence in your own customer service. - Exchange and return policy
It’s normal that your customers ask for an exchange or return the products, and the problem is who should pay the shipping cost for exchange or return products. Searching for the suppliers who have a clear exchange or return policy and choose the one you can accept.
5. Order a product sample
The secret of knowing whether a product satisfies your customers or not? The answer would be to order a product sample for yourself. Ordering a product sample will help you in multiple ways.
Firstly, ordering a product sample for yourself can put yourself in your customer’s shoes. You can experience the whole process of the order, including choosing, paying, and receiving the products. After that, you’ll know the deficiencies and try to make a friendly-buying process.
Then, It will be more accurate and vivid when you’re writing a description for your product, and a compelling description will make your product be seen and purchased easily.
You can also leverage the sample for social media marketing. You can take some photos or videos of your product instead of the ones suppliers offer. Taking photos and videos by yourself will gradually form a unique style. Moreover, you can also use the sample for giveaways to help increase the fan’s number or activeness.
6. Import 25 items for the first time
Dropshippers are always excited about importing a ton of new products.
The problem is adding too many products at first time will make you neglect the importance of product title, description, and picture. The truth is a great product title, description, and picture are the keys that the product can be seen.
No matter writing a description or taking a photo for your product, even just adding a logo is a time-consuming and energy-using task. Especially for students or those who have other jobs but want to start dropshipping as a side hustle.
How about we start the dropshipping journey by importing fewer products? There’s no limit to the number of products. You can decide by yourselves. Just don’t forget the importance of writing a good title and description.
7. Keep an eye on the inventory
Inventory management is an important task for dropshippers since we get a variety of products from our suppliers. The suppliers will not update the inventory with you in real-time, and we may meet an awkward situation that telling customers we’re running out of stock.
To avoid this awkward situation, dropshippers can try to collaborate with multiple suppliers. When the A supplier is running out of stock, we can find the B supplier to fix the problem in time.
8. Improve customer satisfaction
The key to improving customer satisfaction is to provide timely support.
What a timely customer support includes? You should create an FAQs page on your website, so your customers know what they should pay attention to when shopping. A Contact Us page on your website is also essential. Your customers will know where to find you when they encounter problems that aren’t contained on the FAQs page.
Besides, you should also consider a phone support service, especially when you’re selling high-value products. Phone service could help you and your customers to know and solve the problem together. It’s a highly effective way of customer service.
9. Enhance your marketing strategy
Marketing cannot be neglected if you want to increase exposure and sales. Here are some handy marketing strategies for dropshippers.
- SEO(Search Engine Optimization)
SEO is a way to increase the visibility of your website, you can optimize your content and website for search engines to increase the visibility of the results of search engines. - Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is widely used for brands since it’s a good way to show your brand and communicate with your customers.
Build a strong presence on social media by posting interesting, valuable content on your social media account. - Paid advertising
There’s a lot of paid advertising for you to increase exposure of your brands, for example, The platform like Google ads, Facebook ads, TikTok ads, etc.
The platform provides different paid advertising services, and you’re able to test what kind of paid advertising is good for increasing exposure or boosting sales. - Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is partnering with influencers who are in your niche, and they will recommend your product through videos or posts.It’s an easy but useful way to boost your sales in a short time, but you should notice the potential risks like the recommendation video fail or the influencers disappearing after they receive the deposit.
You don’t have to implement all the marketing strategies together, choose 1-2 strategies that are good for your business.
10. Set a clear policy for your business
A clear policy can decrease the risk of conflict with your customers, and help your customers shop by themselves. It’s necessary for businesses, especially for a small business.
- Privacy policy
Information leakage has been taken as a serious problem since it could cause identity theft, data breaches, or ransomware installation. Your customers might leave your store because worrying about information leakage, which will impact your sales or even get you a law liability.
Let your customers know where their information will be used and what you will do to protect their private information. That’s why you need to set a privacy policy on your website. - Exchange and return policy
It’s normal for customers to exchange or return the products, and the reason might be the poor quality of products, the shipping time and cost, or they just don’t want one, etc.
Setting a clear policy about exchange and return policy will help you prevent headache situations, and reduce the risk of conflict with your customers. - Shipping and cost rule
Shipping time and cost are problems that dropshippers and customers will face. For customers, knowing what their expenses contain is essential.
Setting a shipping rule and telling your customers how to calculate the shipping fees and time, and it’s reasonable. This rule helps decrease their haze and improve the possibility of purchase.
11. Decide the pricing
Dropshipping business means you searching the products from suppliers, and you’re free to decide the price of products.
When you sell your product at a higher price, you’re able to get a higher profit. When the price you made exceeds the marketplace price a lot, you are likely to face the dilemma that no one buys products from you, especially for a new startup store.
Therefore, you should price your product at a reasonable price. The best way to set your price is to compare it with your competitors, looking at what price they make for the same product.
Remember, do not sell at a price lower than your competitors just for competition, it’s a not wise decision for your business.
12. Try multiple selling strategies
An easy but useful way to boost your sales is to try multiple selling strategies.
- Upselling
Upselling is offering your customers to buy a higher-end product through comparison charts or graphics. Showing visitors that the other version might be better to fulfill their needs and able to provide more value for them.
A simple example is selling an electronic watch, showing your customers the comparison between the first generation watch and the second with a chart or graphic. It’s likely to push your customers to buy the high-end product, and you’re able to get a high profit margin. - Cross-selling
Cross-selling invites your customers to buy related or complementary items, and it’s a highly-effective tactic for generating more purchases.
A example of cross-selling is when your customers decide to buy a camera, tell them to purchase a lens together will have a 10% discount. It’s likely to buy lenses for someone who has a camera. To some content, your behavior of offering a discount will push them to purchase an additional item. - Consultative selling
Consultative selling is a selling strategy that focuses on building trust between customers and sellers. By thinking of yourself as a proactive consultant, exploring your customer’s needs and offering the perfect product to them.
13. Build a highly recognizable brand
Building a highly recognizable brand is mainly about adding value to your brand.
Figuring out what value you can provide to your customers. An example is when people are running for exercise, it’s inevitable to hurt their knees and cause damage. To solve this problem, fitness equipment suppliers introduced air cushion shoes to slow down the vibration when hit the ground.
It’s also a way to provide value by telling them all the valuable information. For example, if you’re selling jewelry, try to write a blog and tell your customers the ways to differentiate the jewelry in similar looks.
Besides, a unique logo and regular style are also helping to build a highly recognizable brand.
14. Make sure your website is user-friendly
For an online dropshipping store, a user-friendly website plays an important role in improving user experience(UX) and boosting sales. However, what a user-friendly website looks like?
- Mobile purchase friendliness
The research reveals that mobile commerce sales are expected to reach $2.97 trillion in 2025, which means more and more people choose to shop with their phones. It will be better to develop an app for customers who like to shop on mobile. - Website speed
A fast-loading website provides a better user experience for visitors, and it will increase your website engagement, longer visiting time, and even higher conversion. - Payment options
Offering multiple payment options reduce the risk that your customers leave because unable to pay, it’s also a better chance for selling products to people from different places with different payments.
Pay attention to the 3 aspects of your website and try your best to make your website easy to use.
15. Ready to pivot your business approach
For dropshippers, you need to prepare to pivot your business approach at all times. Pivoting your business doesn’t mean a bad thing. It does happen several times when you run your business.
You may need to import the new trending product when a new trend pops up. You also need to remove the products that are not liked or purchased by your customers. Even the time you need to change your niche and all the products, though you have done a lot of research before starting your dropshipping journey.
Don’t worry about pivoting business approach will bring you what. You just need to know when to take action and be brave.
16. Be active online and offline
When you’re seen, you’re likely to boost your sales and make money. You need to cherish every opportunity that increases your visibility, which requires you to be active online and offline.
The network is an important bridge that connects you and your customers. To increase your visibility, you can post compelling content on social media in regular time and style. You can also increase your visibility by collaborating with influencers and so on.
Being active offline is also important for scaling your business. There’s a lot of offline exhibitions or seminars in the city, and you can participate in those events and know more experienced entrepreneurs who may offer you collaboration or useful advice.
The things you need to know before starting dropshipping
1.No control over the whole process
In the dropshipping model, your suppliers will hold the inventory and take care of the whole shipping process. Therefore, you should be prepared well for various problems that could arise in the production and shipping chain.
2.Establish your brand could be a challenge
Dropshipping is a profitable business practice with low risk and high profit margins, which leads to high competition. The products you get from the suppliers also face homogenization and quality problems.
High competition and uncertainty of products make establishing a brand to be a challenge.
3.Legal liability issues
Though dropshipping is legal, remember to check if there a hidden legal liability issues.
A simple example is when you decide to dropship a print-on-demand product, remember to check the copyright of your pattern. If you create the pattern all by yourself, you also need to register the pattern for copyright.
Conclusion
The most effective tip for dropshippers is to search for your perfect products and set up your own store now! Don’t let yourself into a trap that procrastinating or fear of failure. Dropshipping is a tested business model with many benefits, with no inventory and the ability to pivot your approach at any time. It’s worth trying dropshipping business.
After you start your dropshipping business, you should try the tips above, then you will find out a small change will bring such amazing profits. Hoping these tips will help your business take off.
By taking these tips and putting in effort, you’ll be well on building your own dropshipping business and making money. What are you waiting for? Take action now！
FAQs
1. What sells best in dropshipping?
Here are the evergreen niches you could try:
- Clothing and Ornaments
- Beauty and Skin care
- Kitchen Accessories
- Washing Essentials
- Pet Supplies
2. How profitable is dropshipping?
Dropshipping business could probably make $5 – $5,000 a day. It depends on your products and other factors. If you sell a product that is not saturated in the marketplace and in demand, it’s more likely to make more profit.
3. What is the trick to dropshipping?
The key is finding best-selling products and using marketing strategies properly. The best-selling product refers to the products not saturated but in demand in the marketplace. Choosing the marketing strategies properly and implementing them to help to increase the chance to be seen and conversions.
4. Is $100 enough to start dropshipping?
Yes, you can start your dropshipping journey with $100. Suppliers have a wide range of products that you can find a perfect product to start.
