What Is the Success Rate of Dropshipping & 8 Best Tips to Boost It

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Running a dropshipping store can feel like riding a roller coaster. One minute you're flying high, celebrating a surge in sales, and the next, you're plunged into a world of stress where you can't seem to get anything right. If you're dreaming of long-term success with dropshipping, then it's time to face a harsh reality: the success rate of dropshipping is not as high as you might expect. According to data from Shopify, around 80% of dropshipping businesses fail within the first year. If that number sounds alarming, you're not alone. But before you toss out the idea of starting a dropshipping business, there is good news. With the right resources, you can significantly improve your odds of success. In this article, we'll look closely at the question, what is the success rate of dropshipping to help you understand the realistic success rate of dropshipping and learn actionable strategies to significantly on how to find dropshipping products.

One of the best resources for boosting your odds of success is Shop Hunter's Shopify sales tracker. This simple tool helps you keep track of your sales to stay organized as you navigate the challenges of building a successful dropshipping business.

What is the Success Rate Of Dropshipping?

Dropshipping is an order fulfillment method that helps business owners avoid inventory issues. When a dropshipping store makes a sale, it purchases the items from a third party, usually a wholesaler or manufacturer, and the products get shipped directly to the customer.

This means that the dropshipping business never handles the products directly. This business model appeals to entrepreneurs because it’s relatively easy to get started and has low upfront costs. Since dropshipping eliminates the need to purchase inventory upfront, entrepreneurs can start an online store and begin making sales without ever touching a box. Instead, they can focus on marketing and growing their business.

Industry Statistics Paint a Promising Picture of Dropshipping Success

The most important dropshipping statistics to know right now comes from this recent study from Statista. According to them, it’s forecasted that the global dropshipping market size will reach $301 billion in 2024, and it will continue to grow, reaching $476.1 billion by 2026.

Another report done by Grand View Research states that the dropshipping industry is expected to reach $1,253.79 billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of 23.4% over the forecast period. The same company just released a new report in 2024 stating the global B2C eCommerce market size is anticipated to reach $17,770.52 billion by 2030. In other words, this fact proves that you made the right decision to invest your time, money and effort into a dropshipping business. This business model is a very successful one and quite profitable. So give yourself a pat on the back.

Success Rates for Dropshipping Businesses

The success rate of dropshipping businesses can vary widely, as it depends on various factors such as:

The niche of the products

Marketing strategies

The ability to adapt to market trends

There isn’t a fixed success rate for dropshipping, and success is subjective, as it can mean different things to different people. According to industry experts, the dropshipping success rate of eCommerce stores is around 10% to 20%. This means that out of every 100 businesses that use Shopify for dropshipping, only 10 to 20 are successful. First-time small business owners have a success rate of 18%, increasing to 20% when small business owners have had a failed startup.

Profit Margins Are a Key Indicator of Dropshipping Success

Dropshippers can make between 15%-20% profit margin. Dropshipping businesses typically have a healthy profit margin, averaging between 15% and 20%. If your sales are over 10% above the wholesale price, you’re on a good path to securing a strong profit margin.

To get a clear picture of your dropshipping business’s profit margin, it’s crucial to factor in all costs. This can mean:

The dropshipping and e-commerce platform you use

Shipping fees, or taxes

Marketplaces

Website hosting charges

The budget allocated for marketing

Considering these costs is essential when setting your product prices in your online store, so ensure you find the right balance between competitiveness and profitability.

What Is A Good Profit Margin For Dropshipping

How Does Dropshipping Work

What Is The Most Profitable Dropshipping Business

How To Source Dropshipping Products

Is Dropshipping Still Profitable

How to Find Winning Products For Dropshipping

What Is AI Dropshipping

What Is Branded Dropshipping

Why Do So Many Dropshippers Fail?

1. Selecting the Wrong Dropshipping Supplier

Selecting the right dropshipping supplier is critical to running a successful dropshipping business, and choosing the wrong one can have detrimental consequences. One significant concern is product quality; if the supplier provides subpar products, it can lead to customer:

Dissatisfaction

Returns

Negative reviews

Overcoming Common Supplier Challenges in E-Commerce and Dropshipping

Another issue is reliability; an unreliable supplier may fail to consistently fulfill orders on time, resulting in delayed shipments and stockouts. Effective communication is crucial, and difficulties in this area can lead to:

Misunderstandings

Order errors

Lack of shipment transparency.

Pricing and profit margins are also impacted, as some suppliers may not offer competitive pricing or may have high minimum order requirements.

2. Doing Little Research

Starting a dropshipping business without market research is like building a house on sand. Before investing any resources, you need to understand your:

Target audience

Competitor landscape

Product viability

For instance, high-ticket dropshipping can offer great opportunities, but choosing products wisely is crucial. Take a look at some of the best high-ticket dropshipping products that can set you on the right path.

Avoiding Product Pitfalls: Balancing Trends, Longevity, and Strategic Pricing

Choosing trendy products without considering their long-term viability is another disaster. You might see initial hype, but soon you will find yourself stuck with unsold merchandise. Setting a price is a delicate dance. Overprice and you deter potential buyers. Underprice and you miss out on profit opportunities. To find the sweet spot:

Research your market

Understand your value

Price strategically

The Power of Ongoing Research: Navigating the Dropshipping Market with Knowledge and Insight

The good news is that you can avoid these pitfalls by investing in research. Dive deep into your:

Target audience

Analyze your niche

Scrutinize potential products before committing

Remember, research is an ongoing journey, not a one-time destination. By making it a constant companion, you’ll equip yourself with the knowledge and foresight to navigate the dropshipping seas and chart a course toward success.

3. Starting Out with Too Many Products

Many new dropshippers get overwhelmed by the variety of products available and try to offer everything to everyone. Instead, focus on a niche where you can build expertise and offer a select range of relevant products. Choose products that align with your brand identity and resonate with your target audience, even if it means limiting your product selection.

It is preferable to be a master of a few things rather than being average at many. Analyze the data to understand which products are performing well and which are dragging you down. Regularly prune your inventory and replace underperforming items with promising new options.

4. Poor Customer Service

Customer service is the invisible thread that connects a business to its customers. But in dropshipping, where direct control over the product’s journey is limited, poor customer service can be a gaping hole in that thread. When customer service is lacking, it often leads to:

Delayed responses to inquiries

Unaddressed concerns

General dissatisfaction among customers

Timely and helpful communication addresses order issues, provides product information, and handles returns or refunds.

Building a Strong Customer Service Foundation: Enhancing Trust and Loyalty in Your Dropshipping Business

Failing to prioritize customer service can result in negative reviews, eroding customers' trust in the business. Train your customer service team to handle issues effectively with empathy and knowledge. They are the frontline ambassadors of your brand, so equip them with the tools and information to shine.

Dropshipping businesses should prioritize building a responsive and supportive customer service system to foster:

Positive relationships

Enhance brand reputation

Ultimately contributes to long-term success

5. Selecting the Wrong Niche

Selecting the wrong niche is a critical mistake that can significantly impact the viability and success of a dropshipping business. Understanding the target audience within the chosen niche is crucial. The niche represents the specific market segment or industry in which a business operates. Choosing a niche without thorough research and consideration can lead to several problems.

First, selecting a niche with limited demand or oversaturation can result in a lack of customer interest and, consequently, low sales. On the other hand, entering a highly competitive niche with a unique selling proposition (USP) can make it easier for the dropshipping business to distinguish itself from other market players.

How to Choose a Profitable Niche: Balancing Customer Needs, Market Trends, and Profitability in Dropshipping

Failure to align with the target audience's preferences, needs, and behaviors can lead to ineffective marketing strategies and missed opportunities. Selecting a niche with products that have low-profit margins or high shipping costs can impact the financial viability of the business.

Choosing a niche that aligns with the drop shipper’s interests and expertise can contribute to a deeper understanding of the market and enhance the overall business strategy. In short, selecting the correct niche is foundational to the success of a dropshipping business, influencing:

Customer engagement

Increasing customer loyalty

Profitability

Long-term sustainability

6. Lack of Branding/Marketing

A lack of branding and marketing is a significant challenge to the growth and success of a dropshipping business. Branding is about:

Establishing a unique identity for the business

Creating a distinct presence in the market

Fostering customer recognition

With a strong brand, a dropshipping store may be able to differentiate itself from competitors, resulting in a lack of customer loyalty and diminished market impact.

Building a Strong Brand Identity and Leveraging Marketing Channels to Drive Traffic and Sales in Dropshipping

Effective marketing is equally crucial for attracting and retaining customers. Failure to implement robust marketing strategies can lead to a lack of visibility, making it challenging for the dropshipping business to reach its target audience. Insufficient marketing efforts may result in:

Low website traffic

Lower conversion rates

Overall poor sales performance

To overcome these challenges, dropshipping businesses must invest in branding and marketing initiatives. This includes:

Creating a compelling brand identity

Designing a professional and user-friendly website

Implementing various marketing channels such as:

Social media
Content marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO)

The Power of Branding and Storytelling: Creating a Memorable Customer Experience in Dropshipping

This contributes to a more memorable and impactful presence in the market:

Building a brand story

Highlighting unique selling propositions

Engaging with customers through various marketing channels

Neglecting branding and marketing limits the potential for customer acquisition and undermines the ability to establish a strong and recognizable brand in the competitive eCommerce landscape. Dropshipping businesses can improve their visibility by prioritizing these elements, attracting a loyal customer base, and driving sustainable growth.

7. Choosing the Wrong Marketplace to Sell On

Selecting the wrong marketplace to sell on is a critical mistake that can significantly impact dropshipping success rates. The wrong market may not align with the target audience or the product type. Each marketplace caters to a specific audience, and failure to match the dropshipping business with the right platform can result in lower visibility and reduced sales.

Choosing the Right Marketplace for Dropshipping: Balancing Fees, Competition, and Flexibility

The fee structure and policies of different marketplaces are different. Choosing a platform with high fees or stringent regulations may eat into profit margins and constrain the business's flexibility. The level of competition varies across different marketplaces. Joining an overcrowded marketplace without a clear strategy for standing out can make attracting customers and competing effectively challenging.

Dropshipping businesses should conduct thorough research on potential marketplaces to reduce these risks. This involves assessing the platform’s:

User base

Fee structure

Policies

Overall compatibility with the business model

Maximizing Dropshipping Success: How to Choose Between Popular and Niche Marketplaces

Popular marketplaces like Amazon or Walmart may offer broader exposure, but niche platforms can benefit specific product categories. Ultimately, the key is to align the chosen marketplace with the following:

Target audience

Products

Business goals

By making an informed decision about where to sell, dropshipping businesses can optimize:

Their visibility

Leverage the platform’s resources

Improve the overall success rate of dropshipping businesses

8. Delayed Shipping

Shipping delays are a common challenge to dropshipping success rates and can significantly impact customer satisfaction and the business's overall reputation. This issue arises when delays in fulfilling and delivering orders to customers impact the promised delivery times.

Managing Shipping Delays: How Supplier Reliability and Geography Impact Dropshipping Timelines

Two factors can contribute to delayed shipping in the dropshipping model.

Reliance on suppliers who need help with inventory management or have long processing times can lead to delays.

Geographical distances between:

The supplier
The dropshipping business
The customer can contribute to shipping delays

The impact of delayed shipping on the business is significant. Customers may become frustrated, leading to negative reviews, decreased customer satisfaction, and the potential loss of future business.

9. Lack of Control Over Products

Dropshipping businesses rely on external suppliers for:

Manufacturing

Packaging

Shipping

This lack of control can lead to unforeseen challenges like quality issues or inventory discrepancies. The lack of control over products is a notable challenge in the dropshipping model, stemming from the fact that the business needs to physically handle or manage its inventory. This absence of direct control over the products being sold can have various implications.

Overcoming Quality Control and Inventory Challenges in Dropshipping

Quality control becomes a potential issue. Since the dropshipper relies on third-party suppliers to fulfill and ship orders, there is a limited ability to inspect the products for quality before reaching the customer. Inventory management is challenging due to the dependency on suppliers.

Fluctuations in product availability, stockouts, or delayed shipments can occur without the direct involvement of the dropshipping business, impacting the ability to consistently meet customer demand. The branding and packaging of products may not align with the dropshipper’s desired image.

Managing Customer Expectations and Brand Consistency in Dropshipping

Since the business does not handle the products directly, it has limited control over:

How items are packaged

Branded

Presented to customers

This could affect the overall brand experience. A lack of control over the physical products can result in poor product quality, dependency on suppliers, and product branding and packaging that can lead to customer dissatisfaction and potential returns.

10. Lack of Patience

Lack of patience is a common pitfall in the dropshipping business, where entrepreneurs may expect immediate results and success. This impatience can manifest in several ways, impacting the overall sustainability and growth of the business. Building a successful dropshipping business takes time, and expecting rapid profitability can lead to disappointment. Establishing a customer base, refining marketing strategies, and optimizing operations require patience and a long-term perspective.

Entrepreneurs may become discouraged if they do not see immediate sales or a substantial return on investment (ROI). Impatience may lead to hasty decision-making. Entrepreneurs may be tempted to:

Change strategies

Switch products

Abandon the business altogether if results are not instantaneous

Best Dropshipping Products

How To Test Products Dropshipping

How To Add Dropshipping Products To Shopify

Best Place To Sell Dropship Items

AI Dropshipping Product Finder

Best Dropshipping Platforms

YouTube Ad Spy Tool

Digital Dropshipping Products

Dropshipping Pet Products

Dropshipping Beauty Products

Dropshipping Winning Products

Dropshipping Baby Products

Most Profitable Dropshipping Products

8 Strategies for a Better Dropshipping Success Rate

1. Find the Right Product

The first step is finding the right product to sell. Before we start searching for products, we need to know what we’re looking for.

These are our requirements for selecting a winning product:

High Demand: The demand is how many people will buy your product. You need to find a product that people want to buy. If your product doesn’t meet the demand, then you won’t make any sales.

Profit: You need to ensure every product you launch is profitable. Otherwise, your business will be running at a loss. To quickly check your profit, you can deduct the costs to sell my product (product price, shipping, ads, etc) from the selling price. We recommend that you look for products with 20-25% profit. Ideally, the more profit, the better, as it gives you space for any issues.

Competition: Your competition is anyone else selling the same product as you. Ideally, you want low competition, and any competition you do have, you need to be able to beat.

Restrictions or Laws: Check whether your product is subject to any specific laws or restrictions. This could include products with:

A trademark or products that are illegal to sell
Import
Export in certain countries

There are also a few other things to consider, like:

Product availability

Product outlook

Your customer base. For more details on winning product requirements, check out this article. You can find products in many different ways, and everyone has their own

methods. But these are the ways we’ve found the most successful products:

Product Research Tools

A product research tool reveals product, store, or ad information so you can make data-driven decisions when you choose my drop shipping product. It provides more accurate results than the other methods we’ll discuss, and you don’t need to manually search for products.

Shophunter

ShopHunter's Shopify sales tracker offers a unique tool for ecom founders, particularly those in the Shopify ecosystem. At its core is a custom algorithm that estimates sales for both entire stores and specific products, helping users quickly validate product potential. The platform goes beyond basic sales tracking, featuring an ad spy tool that monitors advertising activity across stores.

This combination allows users to spot trending products and successful marketing strategies early on. ShopHunter aims to streamline product research and reduce the risk of investing in low-performing items, whether you're:

A dropshipper

A Shopify store owner

Someone looking to enter the e-commerce space

Sign up for a free trial (no credit card required) to our Shopify sales tracker tool find your next eCom opportunity, or to level up your current eCommerce store by learning from your competitors.

2. Dropship

Although we’re biased, Dropship is the best dropshipping product research tool. And you can check it out for free with the 7-day free trial. It allows you to spy on other Shopify sellers’ stores to see the real numbers other dropshippers and e-commerce stores are making.

Maximizing Product Research and Competitor Insights with Dropship Tools

Dropship has several tools to find, track, and take action on winning products. The Product Database lets you search and filter through products to find ones that meet your criteria. You can then save products and stores to your own Sales Tracker. This allows you to monitor their performance over time. Once you’ve found products you think are winners, you can search for your competition using the Competitor Research tool. You can analyze the competition and work out how to beat them.

Streamlining Product Launch and Research with Dropship's Comprehensive Tools

Once you’re ready to launch your product, you can use the quick action buttons to search for it on AliExpress to find a supplier and import it to your Shopify store using AutoDS.

Dropship also has several other product research tools. These include the following:

Portfolio: Let Dropship research for you. Every week, they send a list of winning products with a complete overview, a list of pros and cons, potential competition, a list of suppliers, and much more.

Top Stores and Products: Dropship has lists of the top-performing stores and products, updated every 24 hours. These are proven winners and can inspire your own store.

Ad Spot: One of the latest tools dropship has launched is the Ad Spot. Search for ads by their:

Copy
Type
Engagement
Domain
CTA and more

You can also do a quick search for top performers and weekly winners. Looking at other seller’s ads can help you identify products that advertise and convert well.

Chrome Extension: Find winning products while you browse. The Chrome extension works on all Shopify stores, so you can see the:

Sales
Revenue
Ads
Themes
Best-sellers and more

3. AliExpress Dropshipping Center (DS Center)

Another tool we’ve used to find winning products is the AliExpress DS Center. You can sign up for the DS Center for free through your AliExpress account. The DS Center allows you to search for winning products and see the number of orders and performance of AliExpress sellers. As the DS Center analyzes AliExpress sellers, it makes it easy to find the right supplier and source your products.

Socia Media

We use social media to market our products as it’s where our customers are. But we can also use it to find what they’re interested in to give us product ideas.

Some of our favorite ways to use social media for product ideas are the following:

Facebook Groups: Join Facebook Groups in the niches you want to sell in. You can look at the products they recommend and the equipment they use for inspiration. These groups are often full of experts in the niche who can provide ideas and feedback on your products.

Instagram and TikTok Hashtags: Search for terms like AmazonFinds on TikTok and Instagram. Influencers create videos with 5-10 products from Amazon and showcase them in the video. The products are often trendy or ones that can easily be showcased in the video, which makes them perfect for dropshipping. Checking out the comments to see product reactions can help you identify winners.

Product Reviews: If you have a few products thinking about dropshipping, check out review videos. The reviews will often include the pros and cons of the product, which can help you decide if it’s right for your store. If you do decide to go ahead, the real feedback can help you create compelling copy for your listings and ads.

Amazon

Amazon and other marketplaces are where our potential customers are shopping, like:

Etsy

Walmart

eBay

Looking at which products are popular, most frequently purchased, or searched for can help us find winning ideas.

Here are a few ways you can use Amazon to find winning products:

Best Sellers: Amazon lists all its best-selling products in each category. These products are all guaranteed to have high demand. You can search through each category to find products that meet your winning criteria.

Auto Complete Search Bar: Amazon completes the search bar when you start typing in the name of a product. It does this to help potential customers find the products they’re looking for. Although we don’t know the exact formula for the products Amazon recommends, we can assume that they are based on popularity and purchase rate. This means that all of the products suggested are ones with high demand and high sales.

Your Own Knowledge, Experience, and Ideas: We all have different interests, knowledge, and experiences. For example, you might be really into running. And one day, you think, I wish I could find a running belt that doesn’t move while I run. Instantly a product idea. Think about gaps in the market, products that don’t quite meet your expectations, or products that aren’t easy to find.

Products we’ve found like this have been some of our best sellers. This is because we know the market. We are the target audience. So, we know all of this gives us an edge over the competition:

What to look for when sourcing the products

How to write copy that converts

Who the target market is

Choose a Reliable Supplier: You will rely on your supplier to:

Prepare
Package
Ship your orders

So you need to make sure you find a reliable one with high-quality products. For dropshipping, we usually find our suppliers on AliExpress. AliExpress is a huge marketplace of suppliers and small businesses, mostly located in China. AliExpress is our go-to as they offer business-to-consumer purchases. This is perfect for dropshipping, as you can order one piece at a time rather than in bulk, but still for an affordable price. As AliExpress is such a huge site, with many suppliers offering the same product, it can be difficult to decide which supplier to choose.

These are some tips for finding the right supplier:

Contact Several Suppliers

We recommend reaching out to at least five suppliers and asking them the same questions and comparing their answers. If you need help with questions to ask, we usually ask the following:

What is the price per piece?

How much is shipping?

Which packaging do you offer, and is it included in the price?

Which locations do you ship to?

Where are you shipping from?

How long does shipping take, and which courier do you use?

How long does it take to ship an order after you receive it?

What is your refund, return, and warranty policy?

Do you provide images and videos of the product?

Are you able to offer dropshipping? (including no invoices in the packaging, no brands on the product or packaging, etc.)

Can you send samples?

You can usually narrow down your suppliers based on their answers to the questions. We also recommend comparing their response time and overall communication skills. You’ll be working closely with your supplier, so it's essential to make sure they are quick to reply and easy to communicate with.

Request Samples

After you’ve narrowed down your suppliers based on the above, we recommend requesting samples from the remaining contenders. We always ask for samples as it is the easiest way to compare the quality of the product. Comparing the answers along with the samples will give you the best chance of choosing a reliable supplier. If you want more information, we have an article that includes everything you need to consider when choosing a dropshipping supplier.

Pick the Right Selling Platform and Automation Tools

You’ll need a platform to sell your dropshipping products on, and we also recommend using automation software.

Dropshipping Platforms

Tons of platforms allow you to dropship. Most commonly, you’ll build your own website to sell your products. We always recommend Shopify. Shopify is an e-commerce platform that allows you to:

Build an e-commerce store

Market your products

Accept payments

It’s super easy to use, and you can build a professional-looking website in minutes. It also allows you to accept orders worldwide and integrates with tons of powerful apps to help you grow and manage your dropshipping store. And the best part is we have an exclusive discount. You can access Shopify for $1 per month for three months. You can start making money before paying for a full-price subscription.

Automation Software

Automation software isn’t a requirement for dropshipping. But we wouldn’t (and couldn’t) run our dropshipping businesses successfully without it. Automation tools can import products from AliExpress to your store:

Process orders automatically

Send tracking updates to customers

Manage returns and refunds

We use AutoDS because it’s reliable, easy to use, works with Shopify and AliExpress, and is affordable. We have an article on the Best Dropshipping Software, which has more information on AutoDS and other dropshipping automation software.

If you don’t want to use Shopify, some of the best alternatives are the following:

BigCommerce

Squarespace

WooCommerce

If you don’t want to build my website, you can also dropship on marketplaces like:

eBay

Etsy

Amazon

We don’t usually recommend dropshipping on these platforms as there are additional fees and restrictions, but we won’t go into that here. If you think one of these marketplaces might work for you, we’ve written articles with everything you need to know. You can also sell on social media, including:

TikTok

Facebook

Instagram

These won’t work for everyone. To create shops on Facebook and Instagram, you must live in the US or Canada. Otherwise, you’ll still need a website to link with the platforms.

4. Learn Everything About Running Ads and Marketing

As we saw at the beginning of the article, the top two reasons e-commerce businesses failed were poor online marketing and lack of online search visibility. Essentially, your dropshipping business will fail if no one knows it exists. To overcome this, you need to learn how to market your products.

There are several ways to do this, including the following:

Paid Ads: The most common way to advertise dropshipping products is using paid Facebook and Instagram ads. Paid ads allow you to reach your target audience to make them aware of your brand and products. We find that paid ads generate the most traffic to our stores, which helps to drive sales. We recommend learning to:

Create
Analyze
Optimize

Meta ads: Organic Social Media You can create and post content on social media to promote your products and increase your brand’s visibility. One of the Dropship founders, Nawras, recently did a YouTube video where he started a dropshipping business and only used TikTok and Instagram Reels to promote his products. He created short-form videos of the products, which went viral and helped generate sales.

Building an Effective Email Marketing Strategy and Strengthening Brand Identity

Email marketing is a sign of potential customers up to your email list and create campaigns with offers for your products. You can build an email list in a variety of ways, such as the following:

Host a giveaway, and to enter, they need to sign up for your email list.

Offer a free product or service in exchange for signing up for your email list.

Offer a discount in exchange for signing up for your email list.

When a customer makes a purchase, ask them to join my email list for future offers.

Focus on branding as well as using the tips to advertise your product, you should also think about your overall brand.

Consider your product packaging, website design, product quality, service, and content you post.

Everything you do should have your target customer in mind.

5. Monitor Your Competition and Don't Become Complacent

You’ve started:

Making sales

Your ads are optimized

Your store is profitable

It would be easy to take my foot off the gas and let my dropshipping store run itself. It could fail quickly if you don’t continually monitor and update your dropshipping business. We recommend watching your competition and ensuring you’re still one step ahead. Look at:

What they’re posting

The ads they’re running

Their price changes

Any new product launches

Effective Competitive Analysis and Continuous Optimization for Dropshipping Success

To find your competition, check out Shophunter’s Competitor Research tool. You can search my product by name, and it will show you all of the other Shopify stores that sell the same product. You can then add their stores to your Sales Tracker to monitor them.

As well as monitoring your competition, we recommend the following:

Check your ads regularly and make any changes to improve your conversion rate

Try out different ad copy and media to improve your ads

Post content consistently

Check on trends in my niche

Look at any new product releases in my niche

Join communities and groups in my niche for product inspiration

Update your product listings based on feedback from customers

Test out new software to see if you can make my business more efficient

Consider hiring experts

6. Focus on Customer Service

Customers will need service throughout their entire journey with your dropshipping store. Including before and after they purchase. Before they make a purchase, they might ask you questions about my products, shipping, or anything else. Answering the questions and providing good customer service can increase your conversion rate.

If my replies and interactions are public, like in the comments of my social media posts, they can also help me attract more customers. After the customer has purchased my products, it’s even more critical to provide good customer service, as it’s likely that the customer is contacting me with an issue.

Overcoming Common Dropshipping Challenges with Exceptional Customer Service

You will likely face some issues with your dropshipping store; some will be your fault, and others will be entirely out of your control. We’ve encountered all kinds of issues, including the following:

Poor quality products

Products not arriving on time

Customs issues

Products damaged during shipping

Incorrect item shipped

Item lost during shipping

Customers are usually willing to forgive these errors if you provide good customer service and a solution to the issue.

This will increase their experience with your brand and the likelihood they’ll buy from me again.

7. Add Value Max Robinson of Fish Tank

Bank highlights that 90% of dropshipping businesses fail because they don’t focus on providing much value for the customer. “If all you’re doing is accepting orders from customers then forwarding the order onto a supplier for them to fulfill, then you’re not going to create any sort of loyalty with the customer,” he said, reflecting on a mistake he made early on.

Instead of solely focusing on product features, successful dropshipping go an extra mile with offers like:

Expert advice and guidance, positioning themselves as knowledgeable resources in their niche.

Curated product selections based on customer needs or preferences.

Exceptional customer service, creating strong relationships through personalized support. (This is what Max did as well.)

Educational content that provides valuable information to their target audience.

By offering more than just products, you can build loyalty and set myself apart from my competitors.

8. Ensure You Have the Funds

In the earlier section, we saw that running out of cash, price, and costing issues were among the top five reasons e-commerce businesses fail. Dropshipping is considered a relatively low-risk business, as you don’t purchase any stock until the customer buys from you. You can technically start a dropshipping store for under $20, but we don’t recommend it.

Essential Expenses Before Your First Sale: What Every Dropshipper Should Know

We recommend that you have enough for the following:

Ordering samples

Signing up for all of the software

Building a store market products (paid ads, hiring a professional product photographer, influencer marketing, etc.)

This is all before making a single sale. Once you start making sales, you’ll need to manage your money properly and reinvest it into my business.

Essential Business Expenses for Dropshipping: What You Need to Budget For

The main considerations are returns, exchanges, and refunds. As we discussed earlier in the article, a high refund rate is one of the most common reasons for dropshipping stores to fail.

You’ll also need to consider general business expenses, like the following:

Business License

Taxes Insurance

All of the dropshipping success stories we looked at earlier encountered failure at some point. This often results in losing some money. So make sure that any money you invest in dropshipping at the beginning, you can afford to lose. Usually, it’ll take a few attempts to succeed. We’ve launched several flopped products, but once we found a winner, we recouped all the money we invested in the failed products and more (plus we learned not what to do!)

Koala Inspector Alternative

Dropshipping Products with High Profit Margin

Wholesale2B Alternative

Niche Scraper Alternative

Winning Hunter Alternative

Dropshipping Amazon Products

Sell The Trend Alternative

Dropshipping vs Ecommerce

Ecomhunt Alternative

AliExpress Alternative

ShopHunter's Shopify sales tracker offers a unique tool for eCommerce founders, particularly those in the Shopify ecosystem. At its core is a custom algorithm that estimates sales for entire stores and specific products, helping users quickly validate product potential.

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ShopHunter aims to streamline product research and reduce the risk of investing in low-performing items, whether you're: