Are you looking for the optimal dropshipping product? – You should definitely check out this article, where we will introduce you to the best dropshipping products, explain how to find them, and also give you a guide so that you can also find the optimal provider.
Dropshipping describes a business model that has become increasingly popular in recent years, whereby an online retailer no longer stores its own goods, but has sold products shipped directly by the wholesaler.
In this article you will learn about the advantages of dropshipping, which products are suitable for it and how you can best find them.
- What is dropshipping actually?
- What kind of products are suitable for dropshipping?
- How do I find suitable dropshipping products?
- The 5 best dropshipping products
- Find dropshipping suppliers
- Conclusion – Dropshipping Products
- FAQ – Frequently asked questions
What is dropshipping actually?
Dropshipping products are products that are sold through typical drop shipping. In this case, the online retailer does not purchase its goods in advance, but orders them from its wholesaler only after the customer has placed an order, and the wholesaler then processes the order.
Dropshipping is therefore a type of online commerce in which online retailers offer products in their store without keeping them in stock themselves.
The dropshipper thus has no physical contact with the product , and this ecommerce strategy is thus directly opposed to traditional retail, where goods are ordered in large quantities, stored and shipped to customers.
The principle of dropshipping is quite simple. The online retailer of the product does not have its own inventory and therefore no longer has to deal with the delivery of the product.
Once the order for a product is placed, the retailer forwards the order to the manufacturer or a wholesaler. The latter then takes over all further tasks, packs the desired product and ships it directly to the customer. By saving on inventory, this method does not require a large amount of start-up capital, making dropshipping worthwhile even for an e-commerce beginner.
As a dropshipper, you still have a very big responsibility. Since several online stores obtain their goods from the same dealer, it may happen that the ordered product is sold out and there are delivery bottlenecks, then the customers must be informed immediately. Thus, one should always keep in mind the available quantities of the item so as not to create displeasure among the customers.
If you have now also come to the thought of entering the world of online commerce as a seller using the method of dropshipping, you should therefore not make your choice of products lightly. In the further course you will learn what kind of products are suitable for dropshipping.
What kind of products are suitable for dropshipping?
Dropshipping is primarily based on impulse buying, which encourages quick purchases through advertisements on social media platforms or the Internet. The potential customer should be so strongly attracted by the product offer that he buys the offered product directly without comparing the offers on other platforms.
In order not to offer randomly any products, which then do not sell afterwards, one should do research before, which products are also profitable, because finally the products should bring in profit. There are two ways to find the right products.
1. find trend products
To stay up-to-date, you need to do a little research and find out what the latest trending products are. You can usually find a popular product on big platforms like Amazon or Etsy. Of course, as a small online retailer, you can’t compete with these online giants for the exact same products. For this, you would have to set the sales price so low that it is no longer worth offering the product at all.
As a new dropshipper, you’ll have a hard time competing with established vendors for popular products like sunglasses, fashion items, or children’s toys if you don’t have a competitive edge.
The trick is to find a trend product that is unique in its way and ideally only available at your store. Thus, you are no longer competing with other merchants for the selling price.
2. find niche products
A niche product is a product that does not have as much demand and therefore less supply than a conventional product.
Even if these products don’t appeal to the masses of customers, it can still be profitable to offer them because there is little competition. The probability that someone will buy a product in your store is therefore higher than with classic trend products.
To find niche products, you need to analyze the market carefully and find out if entering this field could be profitable for you.
This method is particularly suitable if you already have a special know-how or have contacts to potential niche customers.
How do I find suitable dropshipping products?
Don’t worry, you don’t have to spend hours searching the internet hoping for a random hit. For dropshipping, there is now cloud software that ranks products according to expected profit margin, product category, or even the country in which the product sells best.
Tools such as Helium 10, Thieve, Pexda, Product Mafia, Repick, Angage and many others are suitable for this purpose.
In addition, it never hurts to take a look at the product range of the competition. It can be quite helpful to first get ideas and inspiration on their webshops about the structure and product range.
1. find trend products
Once you’ve been able to gather specific ideas about certain products, Google Trendsoffers a quick way to research what the demand for the product is currently and how it has evolved.
In the screenshot below you can see the Google Trends results for the keyword Pizza oven. Below you can see the interest for this keyword per region. In addition, the similar search queries and related topics are suggested:
2. find niche products
You can find suitable niche products by using Helium 10 Black Box. Helium 10 Black Box searches the products offered on Amazon according to certain criteria. Since Amazon is the largest online marketplace, you can very well relate these results to the market outside of Amazon.
In this strategy, you use the metrics of high demand, low competition to find your Amazon FBA product.
1. log in to Helium 10
Take advantage of this 20% discount to use Helium 10 at a discounted rate for six months. You can also sign up for free, but then you will only have a limited number of uses.
If you don’t need it after the first month, cancel the subscription. Remember that it will take some time to find the “perfect” product. You won’t find it in a day, but a month is more than enough.
2. start black box
Start Black Box and open the advanced filters. Now you see that you have a number of options to search the entire Amazon marketplace:
3. set filters
Enter the values you want to search for. Ultimately, what product you should sell in your online store depends on your goals and budget.
PRESSURE SEARCH
Now you should see plenty of products that meet all these criteria. If you want, you can sort the list by monthly sales.
4. sort the results
Go through the list and sort out products from big brands. After that, you should pay attention to the following points:
Size and weight of the product
If you don’t have a particularly high budget, you should pay attention to the size and weight of the product. Plus size products cost significantly more than standard size products. You have to pay more not only for manufacturing, but also for shipping.
Price
If you sell products under $15, your profit margin is too low.
For products over $50, customers will start comparing similar products very closely. In the end, it will be much harder for you to close a sale.
Sales
The product should sell well and generate a decent revenue per month. How high this turnover should be depends on your business strategy.
Delivery and return
When selecting products, you should focus on products that can be shipped without any problems. This is because large and bulky items can incur unnecessary shipping costs, which significantly reduce profits. In addition, bulky items more easily cause damage to the product, in which case you must bear the responsibility and provide a refund if the product is defective.
In addition to good returns management, planning for costs incurred for product or delivery defects is essential.
Legality
Due to rapidly developing and changing trends, you should also always keep an eye on the legality of your offered products. This means that you must be legally allowed to offer the items for sale and to advertise them.
Products that fall under categories such as pornography, living creatures or counterfeits usually have no legal status. In addition, you should check all your articles to make sure that the copyrights are respected, otherwise you could face heavy penalties.
The 5 best dropshipping products
Now that you have learned the most important things about dropshipping products, what to look for and how to find suitable products, we would like to introduce you to some of the top dropshipping products.
1. pet supplies
The field of pet supplies is growing steadily, because especially in times of the Corona pandemic, many people have acquired a furry family member.
We humans love our pets and consider them a part of our family, so we want to pamper and cuddle them. This market provides a wide range of products, especially when it comes to the selling price, because there it may be for our darlings sometimes a little more expensive.
The best examples:
- Food: Food for cats and dogs enjoys constant demand and promises attractive profits.
- Toys: With toys for animals you can offer your customers joy and variety.
- Accessories: items such as collars, leashes and beds are among the most sought-after dropshipping products in the pet segment.
2. office articles
Another category that has seen a sharp increase due to the Corona pandemic is the office and stationery category. Due to a wide variety of contact restrictions over the past two years, many companies have switched to home-office workplaces to keep operations running. This predicament has led to a change in thinking in our society.
Many companies have continued to keep the home office workspace option open and would like to offer their employees this option for the future.
Therefore, articles in this area are still excellent for sale, because who does not love an organized and tidy desk, at which you can also work ergonomically.
The best examples:
- Paper: Paper is indispensable in every office. The choice of types and formats is diverse.
- Writing instruments: No office can do without pens. There is a wide range of models and colors.
- Office supplies: Things like staplers, adhesives and scissors are always in demand.
3. beauty and health products
Awareness of health and personal care products has already been a big issue in recent years. In this context, the topic of self-care is increasingly coming to the fore and continues to enjoy great popularity. Who does not like to take time for himself and treat his body to extensive care sessions.
Right now, novel make-up products are back in vogue, which can now finally be presented in public again after a long party break.
The best examples:
- Face rollers and massagers: especially those made of jade or rose quartz enjoyed great popularity.
- LED Light Therapy Masks: These products promise to treat acne, rejuvenate the skin and promote the production of collagen.
- Dietary supplements for skin, hair and nails: capsules, powders or gummies containing biotin, collagen, vitamins and other nutrients are in great demand.
4. gaming articles
The release of the Playstation 5 has triggered a lot of hype worldwide, but the PS5 is still not available everywhere. This clearly shows that the gaming market is far from exhausted and craves for newer and newer gadgets.
Personalized and unique products, which for example spice up the many standard consoles and controllers, are very popular in the gaming sector. At the same time, products that are designed to customize the gaming room, such as wall decorations or LED’s in one are also very popular gift ideas.
The best examples:
- Mechanical keyboards and RGB mice: With their customizable lighting and gaming-specific buttons, these tools greatly enhance the gaming experience.
- Gaming headphones: They deliver a first-class sound experience, which is essential in many gaming situations.
- RGB-illuminated gaming mouse pads: in addition to their appealing light animation, they ensure optimal gliding and thus increase gaming precision.
5. clothes
Even though it may seem strange to them to find this category here, you should pay attention to this category. Maybe you think that there is already everything in clothes and the closet is already so full that it almost bursts, you are not fundamentally wrong, but the sales figures speak for themselves.
The reason why garments keep selling well is that new cool trends keep developing and not all “problem” garments are fixed by a long shot. For example, we are currently seeing a hype of dresses with integrated inside pockets or safety shoes with a sports shoe look.
The best examples:
Denim pants:
A timeless garment available in many styles and cuts.
Sweaters:
Whether coarsely knitted or finely woven, sweaters are available in many colors and designs.
T-shirt:
A classic garment that can be worn on any occasion.
Find dropshipping provider
If you have already decided on a product that you absolutely want to offer, you now have to find a suitable dropshipping provider that offers the product. When searching for a supplier, you must make sure that you do not immediately choose the first best supplier, but first compare the offers of several suppliers who offer the same product.
The success of your store stands and falls with your dropshipping partner. Since they are responsible for the timely and reliable delivery of your products, you are largely dependent on them. If you choose the wrong partner and there are late deliveries or the customer receives inferior goods, your image suffers, because in the end the customer associates you with the product and not the supplier.
Since you have no influence on the shipping and returns of the products, it is essential to inform yourself about the supplier beforehand and choose it wisely. Basically, then, it doesn’t matter how good your product idea is or how willing a target audience is to pay, if you can’t find a manufacturer or distributor to provide that product, you simply can’t sell it.
Two ways to buy goods in e-commerce:
Either you buy your goods from the manufacturer or purchase the goods from a wholesaler. With both methods there are advantages and disadvantages, which you must weigh for your product. For example, the quality, financing or even the individual design of a product plays a role in the selection of a suitable dropshipping provider.
AliExpress
Probably the most well-known place to go when it comes to finding dropshipping providers is AliExpress. The Chinese company was developed by the alibaba group, with the high number of dropshipping providers making it a good place to start in terms of value for money. However, the goods should first be extensively tested for quality and required certificates before you offer them in your online store.
Probably the biggest disadvantage with AliExpress is the long delivery time, which can be quite treacherous in times of Amazon Prime shipping. If you want to learn more about AliExpress and alibaba check out this article.
DHgate
DHgate uses a similar principle to AliExpress. This platform also has its marketplace in China and ships its goods from there. The main difference with AliExpress is that although the website offers a very large and wide selection of products, it usually requires a certain minimum order quantity.
But here, too, caution is advised, because not every provider is equally reputable. You should check the legality of the products before ordering them, because as mentioned above, it can be expensive to import illegal goods and, of course, it also damages your image as a seller.
DHgate still offers another benefit though, as some suppliers offer free shipping on their products, so keep an eye out for those.
Bigbuy
BigBuy is one of the few providers which has its headquarters in Europe, namely in Spain. This has the advantage that delivery times are considerably shorter, which can be a strong argument for choosing this provider, especially if you rely on short delivery times.
Compared to other dropshipping websites, the quality of products at BigBuy is generally higher than other sellers. However, this does not mean that the prices here are significantly higher than other websites, quite the contrary. The advantage of high quality products is that they can be sold later at a higher price than comparatively low quality products.
A fundamental difference from other websites is the setup fee, which is charged by BigBuy. In doing so, you have to pay a one-time fee of €45 to get access to the basic version, which allows you to send a maximum of three products per month to customers. For a monthly subscription of €69, you can then send unlimited parcels to your customers and enjoy other benefits such as a professional dropshipping store.
Oberlo
Oberlo is an app that allows you to source products from multiple marketplaces, primarily AliExpress. It effectively acts as a central dashboard that needs to be integrated into Shopify stores. If you already have such a store, it makes sense to integrate Oberlo into it.
Since Oberlo is more or less a user interface, the shipping time depends on the respective supplier and can thus range from 7 days to a month.
Here, too, you have no costs up to an order volume of 500 units. Once you order more units, there is a $29.90 monthly fee.
The application saves the user a lot of time and work by giving access to current stock levels, sales trend analysis, as well as a support service, among other things.
Conclusion – Dropshipping Products
Finding the right products for dropshipping is not easy. But if you use your time properly, you can enjoy profits in a short time.
Once you get the hang of finding the right products for your store, you won’t need to spend too much time on this either and will quickly notice which items sell well and which don’t.
It is important that proper product research is conducted. But even that is no longer a problem with the Helium 10 software. You can find out how to find a suitable product that you can then sell on Amazon here.
FAQ – Frequently asked questions
With dropshipping, you as a retailer no longer have your own warehouse, but obtain your products from a wholesaler or directly from the manufacturer. This then takes over the shipping of the products for you.
You buy your goods from a wholesaler, such as AliExpress or Alibaba, or directly from the manufacturer. Once a customer orders a product, you route that order to your wholesaler or manufacturer and they ship it directly from the warehouse to the customer.
Especially for e-commerce beginners, dropshipping is very profitable because you don’t need your own warehouse and you don’t have to spend time on delivery and returns. A similar principle exists on Amazon, if you want to benefit from Amazon’s good reputation, check out this article: Amazon FBA.
Probably the largest dropshipping provider is AliExpress. There are many softwares on the market that can rank you the products according to expected profit margin etc. Which ones there are and where you can buy products, we explain in more detail in this article.
On the Internet you can find numerous providers that offer dropshipping, such as AliExpress. If you want to learn more about dropshipping providers read the article the 6 best dropshipping providers for your products.
Products that are particularly well suited for dropshipping are:
- Pet Supplies
- Office Articles
- Beauty and health products
- Gaming articles
- Garments
