How to Choose the Best Products to Dropship

Wondering how to find the best products to dropship? We’ve got you covered with this updated guide.

Dropshipping is an attractive option for sellers. Because the seller doesn’t stock the inventory, and won’t be charged until a sale is made, the initial investment to start a dropshipping business is much lower than more traditional models.

It also allows for a more diverse range of products, since the seller can work with manufacturers from across niches. Now, the biggest risks that come with dropshipping are that margins can be low and competition can be high. While it is easy to start a dropshipping business, it can be hard to make it successful. That’s why we’ve put together a list of attributes to look out for when searching for products to dropship.

 

What Makes a Great Dropshipping Product?

Let’s take a look at some things to keep in mind when choosing dropshipping products.

 

Fairly inexpensive

In order to make dropshipping as profitable as possible, you need to sell a large amount of product.

That’s why the best products to dropship are items that can be sold for less than $50. It’s low enough to fit into most people’s budgets, meaning you’ll have a larger audience to work with.

 

Has a MAP policy

Since the supplier makes money on every sale and takes no risk when allowing retailers to list their catalog, it’s in their best interest to partner with as many sellers as possible. This means you’ll be dealing with a ton of competition.

Retailers are always trying to undercut each other, collectively driving down prices and lowering profit margins. Some items, like phone chargers, have a profit margin of less than one cent per sale.

In order to prevent sellers from cutting prices so low, suppliers often impose a minimum advertised price (MAP) policy. This guarantees a certain minimum markup.

The ideal markup you want to look for with a supplier imposing a MAP is 100%. It ensures that you can make the most out of each of your sales without the chance of someone driving the price down to no margin.

 

Weighs less than 1 Pound

Running your dropshipping business as efficiently as possible means you must keep costs low and profits high. One of the biggest negatives to dropshipping is that the hands-off fulfillment leaves you tied to the dropship supplier’s shipping costs.

If you keep your items below 1 pound in weight, you take a two-fold approach to protecting yourself. Firstly, shipping lighter items is a lot easier and carries less costs. Secondly, the product is less likely to be damaged or broken during shipping. In this case, the best offense against shipping errors is a good defense.

 

Listed in Amazon’s Top 5,000

You need to have enough interest to generate year-round sales. Seasonal items can be great revolving products to supplement your sales, but your bread and butter should be something that you can sell all year long.

Amazon is the most popular ecommerce site on the internet and one of the best marketplaces for sellers. Its sales data should be used as a resource for determining which items are popular.You should aim for a product with similar items in Amazon’s top 5,000 Best Seller rank. The best seller rank is divided into categories. When you find an item you’re thinking about dropshipping, check to make sure you can find something similar already selling well on Amazon.

 

Accumulates 100,000 monthly combined searches

The next way to evaluate the potential popularity of your product is through search volume. Amazon is the big fish, but it’s not the only game in town. Using the volume of Google searches and other search engines allows you to get an even broader picture of how many people are interested in buying a product.

Use Google Adwords and Google Trends to search for some of the keywords for your product. The magic number you want to find is 100,000 searches combined for the top 3 keywords. Any less and you’re looking at an item without enough interest to generate significant profits. Any more and you’ll find yourself in a niche with too much competition. Here are some other characteristics to avoid when finding the best products to dropship:

• Products dominated by brand names
• Items in which the health of the participant could be in danger
• Requires a great deal of domain or technical knowledge

 

Offered by 20+ dropship suppliers

The most difficult part of dropshipping for many people is finding a great supplier to work with. Many of the manufacturers are based in China or other foreign countries. Communication can be slow. They are liable to drop out of the conversation at any point with no explanation, and then you’re stuck having to play email tag.

As you’re making your initial contacts for your dropshipping business, you should send feelers to at least 20 different suppliers. You can find these suppliers on Alibaba, which also gives you their contact information to connect. From there, many will eliminate themselves by having poor communication and shoddy terms. Here’s what to avoid:

• Subscription fees
• Slow communication
• A mix of wholesale and retail
• Bulk orders in advance

 

Best Products to Dropship

Now that you understand the strategy for finding great dropshipping products, we’ve compiled a list of top product categories for you:

1. Health and Beauty Supplies: Such as makeup, shower products, and skincare. These products are renewable, meaning you can develop a strong customer base that consistently repurchases products. Also, health and beauty supplies can be purchased at a low wholesale price and the weight of these products is often very low.
2. Computer Accessories: Such as USB drives, laptop batteries, and laptop cases. These products can also be purchased at wholesale prices when bought in bulk, allowing you to have a bit more room to make a profit. For this category of products, the main benefit is the potential to sell multiple items in various bundles.
3. Clothing: Clothing is a universally attractive commodity to customers and is in demand year round. There is the potential to create loyal customers who will continue to buy from you. Focus on providing good customer service and quality product to build repeat customers.
4. Cell Phones and Accessories: Selling cell phones and their related accessories can be advantageous because they are lightweight, high in demand, and you can stock multiple different brands. When you sell a phone, you have the potential to make another sale by offering related accessories.
5. Party Supplies: With the new era of social media, parties are becoming more extravagant and happening more often. Capitalize on this trend by selling party supplies. These items are usually cheap, lightweight, and easy to sell in bundles.
6. Craft Supplies: These products are lightweight, can be cheap, and usually sold in bulk. They’re a perfect choice for dropship suppliers. Here are some best practices for dropshipping craft supplies if you’re interested.

 

Final Thoughts

The numbers don’t lie. Dropshipping is a great way to enter the ecommerce field. With dropshipping software to help you automate communication between sales channels and suppliers, it can also be one of the best options if you want to run a successful online business –  especially when you’ve got the best dropshipping products.

Have more tips for finding the best products to dropship? Please feel free to share them in the comments below!

Editor’s Note: This blog post was updated in November 2019 to reflect more accurate and relevant information.