The best products for drop­ship­ping

Drop­ship­pers looking for the best items to dropship for their online shop can draw in­spir­a­tion from a variety of sources: other online retailers, social media platforms and trend engines. Many product cat­egor­ies are suitable for drop­ship­ping – from fitness to pet goods. But when selecting items to stock for sale, you should consider other factors such as an item’s pop­ular­ity, selling price, and delivery terms. Relevant products can be sourced directly via man­u­fac­tur­ers or whole­salers and also online mar­ket­places such as Ali­Ex­press and DHgate.

In short, drop­ship­ping is an eCommerce business concept in which the shop operator bears no re­spons­ib­il­ity for either the storage or the shipping of their products. When a customer purchases an item, the order is forwarded to the relevant whole­saler or man­u­fac­turer, who delivers the product. A drop­ship­per acts as the middleman between buying and supplying parties.

Im­port­antly, drop­ship­ping products are man­u­fac­tured and stored in advance. When a product is purchased, it is shipped on demand. In the process, it may well happen that an item is no longer in stock. In this case, you can push back the delivery date or offer a similar product as a re­place­ment until the original is back in stock.

You can find out more about drop­ship­ping in our dedicated article on the topic ‘What is drop­ship­ping?’.

Drop­ship­pers, much like other founders of online shops, face the challenge of having to offer their clientele an appealing range of goods. But how do you find drop­ship­ping products to add to your as­sort­ment and boost sales? In­spir­a­tion is key. You can find a drop­ship­ping partner for almost any type of product.

The Internet offers a vast selection of sources for in­spir­a­tion. Other online retailers, large and small are one such source. If learning from others doesn’t appeal to you, it’s worth bearing in mind that many business owners tend to improve their craft through ment­or­ship or the help and guidance of pro­fes­sion­als. In other words, a guiding hand can be useful to get started and avoid common mistakes. You can apply this principle to your business by getting an im­pres­sion of the structure and range of goods of a com­pet­it­or shop.

Here are some examples of online shops that have been suc­cess­ful with their drop­ship­ping products:

1. Aes­then­tials: From funky eyewear to peach-shaped earrings or printed tees – the name of the game are fashion and ac­cessor­ies with a playful appeal. Products of this type attract younger target groups in par­tic­u­lar.
2. Dog Pawty: As the name suggests, Dog Pawty offers goods to make the hearts of dog lovers beat faster. It is not uncommon for web shops to spe­cial­ise on a pet.
3. Wholesale Interiors: If you’re after some in­spir­a­tion for interior design products, you’ll find living room, bedroom, dining room, and home office furniture here. The shop adds new items each month, en­cour­aging shoppers to visit more regularly.
4. Rock­et­Baby: Located in Italy, Rock­et­Baby offers items for babies and toddlers. Com­pet­i­tion in this drop­ship­ping segment is fierce, but customer interest is huge.
5. Gaiman: Yoga, fitness and all things physical vitality are at the heart of Gaiman. If you need in­spir­a­tion for sports-related products, you’ve come to the right place.

But competing drop­ship­pers shouldn’t be your only source of in­spir­a­tion. Major online mar­ket­places like Amazon, eBay, and the like offer a diverse range of products that can prove fruitful for your search. On Amazon, for example, best­seller lists for every product category are updated hourly to show you which items are top sellers. Take a look at the ‘Computers & Ac­cessor­ies’ section or ‘PC Gaming Ac­cessor­ies’, and you’ll be quick to spot popular computer and gaming ac­cessor­ies.

Aside from other online retailers, there are other ways to find best-selling products. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and similar online platforms are good ways to monitor customer interest. After all, keeping an eye on the latest trends is crucial to finding the top drop­ship­ping products.

Pinterest, for example, is a platform people use to create and share pinboards on a wide variety of topics. Pins are usually photos and videos in­ter­mixed with product ads. From gift ideas to interior design items – the variety of products to be pinned is limitless.

If you’re looking to monitor the pop­ular­ity of a specific product, Google Trends is a good choice. Simply enter the name of the item in the search bar and Google displays the level of consumer interest based on search queries.

Now that you have iden­ti­fied sources for product in­spir­a­tion, you’ll want to make a selection of products to be offered as part of your online shop.

While many drop­ship­ping shop may focus on a specific sub-segment of products, there are plenty of others that offer a broad range of products across many different cat­egor­ies. Among the cat­egor­ies that have proven most suc­cess­ful in drop­ship­ping are sports and fitness, tech­no­logy ac­cessor­ies, fashion and ac­cessor­ies, fur­nish­ings (home and garden), and beauty and care.

However, not all items are suitable for drop­ship­ping – quite the opposite. There are several factors you should consider before selecting a product. Here are some of the most important ones:

As pre­vi­ously earlier, it is important to pay attention to current trends. Products receiving plenty of attention on social media can be among the best drop­ship­ping products now or in the near future. Think about your online shop’s target audience and put yourself in their shoes.

A decisive factor for customers is how easy it will be to get hold of a product. The rarer the item, the better. Ideally, you’re the exclusive supplier of mer­chand­ise online and locally. It’s worth checking where similar items are offered for sale. An ordinary pizza cutter, which a customer could purchase at their nearest retail shop, won’t be as at­tract­ive as an animal-shaped pizza cutter that is hard to find.

Another criterion that in­flu­ences if a drop­ship­ping product sells well is how useful the product is. Most customers pay attention to usability over aes­thet­ics when making a purchase. As a drop­ship­per, you’ll want to ensure that the products you offer are useful and make sure your buyers are getting the message.

Online retailers should bear in mind that drop­ship­ping products sell dif­fer­ently depending on their price-per­form­ance ratio and that prices may fluctuate. A best­selling product one year may not be suc­cess­ful the next. Sales ratios will vary from one target group to another and from country to country. Low-price items that can be offered at large quant­it­ies such as cell phone covers, bottle openers, or mugs are offered across many web shops.

When selecting products, focus on items that are easy to ship since you will be re­spons­ible for defective goods and will have to provide a refund. In addition to good return man­age­ment and planning for costs incurred in the event of product or delivery defects, it is advisable to steer clear of heavy, bulky, easily breakable, or very large items. This isn’t a rule of course. But if, for example, you’re trading in per­ish­able goods such as food and pet food, you should ensure that they are shipped risk-free.

Last but not least, the drop­ship­ping products in your online shop should have a legal status. This means that you must be legally allowed to offer your goods for sale and to advertise them. Certain cat­egor­ies are forbidden such as coun­ter­feits, living creatures, por­no­graphy and items that infringe on a creator’s copyright.

The latter include products such as prints of photos of famous per­son­al­it­ies. Here’s an example to that end: Following the release of the TV series ‘The Man­dalori­an’, fans were hyping the character Grogu, which they soon christened Baby Yoda. Con­sequently, a mass offering of un­au­thor­ised mer­chand­ise occurred, and Disney had to crack down on it.

Now that you know all you need to know to start searching for the top drop­ship­ping products, we’ve rounded up some ideas for items you could be selling online. Below we’ve compiled a list of drop­ship­ping best­sellers 2021:

1. Cell phone cover: Our #1 drop­ship­ping product combines aes­thet­ics with utility. The demand for cell phone cases remains con­sist­ently high, as they tend to wear out over time, get lost or no longer fit the phone after a re­place­ment.
2. Security camera: Many people value security and resort to video sur­veil­lance to keep an eye on their home and their pos­ses­sions. Other customers also like to use such cameras for watching animals outdoors.
3. Baby carrier: The parent-child bond is a highly topical issue that has con­trib­uted to products such as baby carriers trending in recent years. Parents can promote closeness with their child by keeping them closer to their body.
4. Dog bed: Pet items like a dog bed are items most pet owners will purchase sooner or later. And because pet ownership never goes out of fashion, the category remains of interest for drop­ship­pers long-term.
5. Gaming headset: In addition to keyboards, mi­cro­phones and mouse pads, the right head­phones are important items for gamers to purchase.
6. RC car: Radio-con­trolled model cars aren’t just toys but can become col­lect­ors’ items. RC car races are organised several times a year for owners of RC cars to compete against each other.
7. Yoga mat: With ever more people working from home, sports en­thu­si­asts are in­creas­ingly turning to activ­it­ies they can perform from home. Sports mats provide a good basis for yoga and other fitness activ­it­ies.
8. Fitness tracker: A fitness tracker provides in­form­a­tion on physical and health values such as running distance, heart rate, blood pressure, etc., making it a top product.
9. Door mat: Inviting doormats are evergreen items, which means there’s always demand for them.
10. Ear plugs: In times of working from home and home schooling, many people use earplugs to focus. Com­fort­able earplugs are in high demand for a quiet sleep.