In your opinion, what are the 3 fundamental things to know before starting to drop ship?

1. Select suppliers you can trust to take care of your customers -- fast & reliable service, authentic and good quality merchandise for the price, good communication in the inevitable event of a problem. Suppliers will never be perfect (even if you owned your own entire operation, you wouldn't be perfect either), but you need to have a standard and don't be afraid to cut ties with suppliers that can't meet them.

2. Select niche products -- at least in the beginning, you want to avoid putting your time/energy into overly competitive commodity products that can be found everywhere. Common products can be a helpful "long tail" addition to your catalog later, once you have a core of successful moneymakers to build around.

3. Select products to which you can add value -- (i.e., create a somewhat differentiated offer in the marketplace). Unless you have exclusive rights, you'll likely be selling things that others are selling as well. Most people fail to gain traction because they use cut-and-paste product data and fail to stand out in any way. They just want to flip products. To succeed, you actually need to embrace the role of marketer/merchandiser and customer service departments. You'll win, even with higher prices, if your offers can:

(A) be found more readily than the competition (better keywords, ad campaigns, content marketing, following on email/social media etc)

(B) give the buyer more clarity or interest (eg better photos, emphasis of features/benefits, product specs, guides on use, better web design/browsing experience, etc)

(C) communicate trust (guarantees, returns/replacement policy, good ratings/reviews)

Not all-encompassing but I believe these are the main reasons we had success when starting out. At the same time, you need to be sure to TAKE ACTION without waiting for each supplier or product to be perfect. Do as much of these as you can and just get in the arena! Even if that means starting with cut-and-paste products! Just be sure to iterate/revise things as needed.

This should get you off the ground, and once you have more money coming in, you'll have more levers for diversifying your offering, supply/fulfillment strategy, and marketing.

The biggest thing is to know ALL of your costs!


There are many pitfalls, but underestimating costs is huge.


What is your cost to acquire a customer?
What are your overhead costs?
What are your return rates and what % do they claw back from your profits?


And many more.

Like I said on another forum, most of ecom is like Sturgeon's law. Unfortunately too much business models are based to scam the potential customer on how easy it is to create an ecommerce business. Honestly it is far from the truth.

My best advice would be when you analyze everything is to stay away from all business and services selling you a dream. Talk to people who did it, talk to the dropshipper, establish a link of trust and then see if it is worth it.

dont forget, lot of business dont need the dropshipper website to survive while others it is their whole business plan.

there lot of analysis you need to do before you jump in

Hello Hope Hopes 93, did you start your ecom store?

I would recommend you choose a niche where you can sell things people canot find on the walmart or target next corner.

Ecom platform are several to choose from I would use shopify for its features and cost (start with the basic or lowest price)

There are several apps that can help load products, and sales channels you can use as well.

If you are looking for a pair of hand to do the hard work, please let me know to help you with.

Now when talking about dropshipping the best is to use FB ads to drive target traffic and retargeting.

It is better to sell a high ticket product than a low ticket.
Let´s say you want a goal of $3000 a month as profits
If you sell a cell case where you have a profit of $3 dlls you need to sell 3000 pieces, but if you sell something whre your profit is $300, you just need to sell 10 pieces. FB ads will be cheaper for the second one.
Well see you around

1. Know that there are enough people searching for what you are selling (bare minimum 100 per day in the geographical market you will be shipping to).
2. Know that there are keyword phrases for those things that aren't super difficult to rank for.
3. Sell something that isn't widely available in a large variety locally and costs enough money to make it worth your while to build a site (we like things that cost at least $400)

1.- Select your niche, products, and suppliers.

2.-Watch out the design of your store.

3.-Build relationships with your customers

If you're confident in your product selection, drop-shipping success boils down to your partners. 1) The supplier you work with / 2)The logistics company they use / 3) Your own resources and systems.

1) Your supplier's inventory must be available, so that when you get an order, they can react quickly to get your item. Avoid using suppliers that have highly fluctuating prices and go out of stock, even if it's only rarely.
2) The logistics supplier should work seamlessly to get items to your buyers, so once you get an order it gets to the buyer as quickly as possible. If you sell on eCommerce marketplaces, the ideal 3PL would be able to get your items eligible for fast-shipping tags like Walmart Free 2 Day Shipping, eBay Guaranteed Delivery, Amazon Prime.
3) If your systems aren't well-planned, you risk running into problems that can throw off the entire dropshipping process. As a basic example, you should always have enough money in the bank to cover order payments, even if your buyers request a refund. This will help you avoid fees and penalties, as well as keep good relationships with your suppliers.