Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Want to jump straight to the answer? The best dropshipping company for most people is Oberlo for Shopify or Salehoo.
Dropshipping makes it possible to start an ecommerce site without handling the inventory, shipping, or fulfillment. Manufacturers ship products directly to the customer, so you get all the upside with no headaches.
This in-depth guide reviews and compares the best dropshipping companies. The right dropshipping solution makes it’s easy to run a profitable ecommerce site.
The 10 Best Dropshipping Companies, Suppliers, Databases, and Tools
Oberlo — Best Shopify plugin and directory
SaleHoo — Members-only database of 8,000+ suppliers
Spocket — Shopify database with good reviews
Wholesale2B — Versatile supplier and dropshipping hub
Inventory Source — Time-saving dropshipping automation tool
Worldwide Brands — Best budget-friendly database
Dropified — Popular Shopify app for AliExpress
Modalyst — Best Wix plugin and directory
Importify — Best dropshipping tool for WooCommerce
Since dropshipping delegates much of the grunt-work of starting a business to a third party, it has a lot of advantages for merchants looking to grow their business:
Let’s take a closer look at how dropshipping works, and go over some of the options for automating your online business.
The best solution for dropshipping with AliExpress.
AliDropship is great for online entrepreneurs who want to get a fully-fledged online store for a one-time payment at a reasonable price.
These solutions, ranging from a plugin and custom store to various add-ons and themes, are aimed at creating a seamless and satisfactory experience for every dropshipping store owner.
For your convenience, the plugin is fully integrated with WordPress, WooCommerce, and the Shopify app.
Either way, AliDropship provides not only great but helpful solutions for any dropshipping entrepreneur, both new and experienced.
Key Features
Pros
Pricing
You pay a one-time payment for only $89 for the AliDropship Plugin or from $299 for a custom store creation with no recurring payments.
Best Dropshipping Directory ($127 For Lifetime Access)
SaleHoo offers an extensive supplier directory and efficient research tool – it’s the best database when you’re just getting started.
With SaleHoo, you also get access to a large online community of wholesale suppliers and dropshippers. The user-friendly tool helps businesses identify and procure profitable products from low-cost and certified suppliers.
It also offers unlimited training to help you understand the ecosystem and tread smartly in the dropshipping business. Apart from finding great product ideas, SaleHoo also gives you insight into hot selling trends and the supply chain behind it.
It costs $67 for one year of access or $127 for lifetime access. At that price, it’s a no-brainer.
Best For Automatically Syncing Inventory to Your Ecommerce Site.
Inventory Source is an amazing tool that helps you find suppliers, choose products, and sync inventory to your ecommerce platform. I used them with both Shopify and BigCommerce stores and it was a breeze.
You can sync inventory with all of the leading ecommerce solutions, including Amazon, eBay, Shopify, BigCommerce, 3dcart, Magento, WooCommerce, and even Walmart. Inventory Source also offers a connection with over 230 suppliers and the flexibility to add your own suppliers to the platform.
Inventory Automation begins at $99/month and includes:
You can also get started with a free plan to research their suppliers and view product feeds.
Get started with Inventory Source.
Best Dropshipping Supplier For Shopify.
Oberlo is one of the most popular dropshipping marketplaces to search and source products and works exclusively with Shopify.
It allows businesses to find profitable products and add them to your Shopify store instantly. You can also leverage its in-depth product reports to analyze the product’s potential and make the right decision.
Oberlo also allows you to easily buy orders and ship to the customer with just a single click. And you can stay informed with integrated order tracking and status updates.
If you’re new to the dropshipping business, you can start with its free starter plan, which allows 50 orders per month.
Its Basic and Pro plans cost $29.90 per month and $79.90 per month, respectively. There’s also a “Starter” pack that is entirely free and provides all the necessary features.
Get started with Oberlo.
Best For Online Sellers Who Are Looking to Sell Original US/EU Products.
Spocket is a relatively new dropshipping supplier. It offers smooth integration with both WooCommerce and Shopify. With Spocket, you can easily start a dropshipping business by buying products from suppliers present in the USA and the European Union.
It also gives access to suppliers from Australia and New Zealand. This makes Spocket different from other options as some dropshipping suppliers give access to products sold on AliExpress only.
It also offers a massive marketplace with thousands of listed products. You can also leverage Spocket to procure sample products from several suppliers. All the goods sourced from Spocket come with pre-negotiated discounts to help you earn higher margins on your sales.
It offers two paid plans, starting from $24.99.
Get started with Spocket.
Best For Online Sellers That Are Looking For a One-time Payment Plan Dropshipping Solution.
Worldwide Brands give you access to over 16 million certified products through over 8,000 suppliers. With its one-time pricing plan, it offers lifetime access to its vast list of products and sellers. Hence, it’s a great value proposition if you plan to stick to the dropshipping business for a longer period of time.
Its one-time fees cost $299. You can also pay in three easy installments of $99, and then $100 twice.
Get started with Worldwide Brands.
Printful is Best For Businesses That Want To Sell Custom Branded Apparel, T-shirts, and Merchandise.
Printful is a great dropshipping supplier, especially if you want to create and sell custom and print-on-demand products. The print-on-demand service offers easy-to-use design tools to create customized apparel and accessories within minutes. Moreover, it’s a great way to start generating some extra income with zero investment.
When the customer places the order of your customized product, it gets sent automatically to Printful for printing, packaging, and shipping. Also, all the products get shipped in your brand’s packaging to make it appear as if you shipped the product.
It’s available for free. Pay only after receiving the order to cover fulfillment and shipping.
Want to dive deeper into Printful? Here is my Printful vs Printify comparison post.
Get started with Printful.
Best For Online Sellers Who Don’t Want to Manage Dropshipping Suppliers.
Doba offers a product catalog of millions of products from which you can instantly upload products on leading ecommerce platforms and marketplaces. With Doba, you can easily identify hot and trending products, manage the product catalog, and track the location of your orders.
It also gives three easy options to find suppliers and products, including product feeds, a list of products, and the search option. On top of that, it allows you to filter the products by categories, brand, supplier, price range, or search them alphabetically. You can also build your own inventory of products that you are interested in selling. It’s like a custom catalog that allows you to save and revisit products whenever required.
Its Startup, Business, and Enterprise plans come at $14.99, $29.99, and $249.99, respectively when paid annually. You also receive a 30-day free trial.
Best For Online Sellers Who Want To Sell Branded Products Globally.
Sunrise Wholesale dropships products right at the doorsteps of your clients. It offers efficient integration with top ecommerce platforms, including Amazon, Shopify, eBay, and BigCommerce. On top of that, it offers thousands of products in over 20 categories, including home decor and electronics. Sunrise Wholesale even lets you export the product details to Amazon, eBay, or your own website.
Sunrise Wholesale offers access to a website-building application that enables efficient integration to fill in the product list if you want to sell products through your own application. You can also browse its constantly updating inventory to gauge the relevance of your products in the market.
Monthly membership costs $49.00.
Best For Businesses Looking For A Commission-based Pricing Model.
Wholesale 2B curates products from some of the best dropshipping companies under one single platform. It provides access to over 1.5 million products at competitive prices from over 100 certified sellers.
It provides you with impressive tools to assist you in selling your products, along with product content data and sales & inventory analysis. You also get direct integration with multiple online sales platforms, including Amazon, eBay, and Shopify.
With Wholesale 2B, you can also create a new online platform with multiple profitable products. It also enables you to easily find products and list them through its searchable inventory enabled by UPC, keyword, and ASIN. The good news is that you get access to all the product lists without paying any fees.
There are three plans available:
Trying to find the best dropshipping company all up is a little bit beside the point. It’s like asking for the best eBay seller or the best store on Etsy.
The things that make dropshippers great are a lot of the same things that make an eBay or Etsy seller great: They’re communicative and have fast shipping. The product arrives as promised. It looks like the listing and it shows up in one piece in packaging that looks nice and not chewed up by an alligator.
Just like an eBay seller, the best dropshipper for you is the one selling what you’re interested in buying (and reselling). They will reliably, communicatively, and quickly ship the product you’re after at a price that’s profitable for you — it’s about finding your best.
Most dropshippers use a Shopify or Wix store and an automation app like Modalyst or Oberlo. If you’re new to dropshipping, this is definitely the easiest way to get set up.
That means, you are basically setting up the equivalent to any ecommerce store. For ecommerce stores, the clear winner is Shopify. It’s been the frontrunner for a while.
What’s most important about that for dropshipping is that the app store is super robust. Most stores use Shopify, so developers looking to make a high-quality app develop it for the Shopify app store.
So, if you haven’t already set up your Shopify store, that needs to go on your to-do list. We have a post that’ll walk you through the step-by-step process for setting up your Shopify store. It’s easy. There’s even a course in the Shopify Academy to learn how to start a dropshipping business with Shopify: Dropshipping 101.
I don’t recommend dropshipping with eBay.
It’s compelling to set up shop with a marketplace — you don’t have to start a website, pay a subscription, etc. like you would with Shopify. But, I don’t recommend it. Unlike Shopify that’s super excited and helpful with new dropshipping businesses, eBay is growing more and more against them. Here are the sticking points for me:
If you do want to build your dropshipping business with eBay, I’d spend a few weeks or months in the seller forums to understand the specific risks and challenges of dropshipping on eBay.
First, find your niche.
There’s lots of chatter on the internet about finding your dropshipping niche, but this is just a trendy buzzword for product-market fit: are there people who want to buy your product? From you?
If not, you won’t have a successful business.
You’ll have the most success dropshipping a product if there’s an audience that wants to buy it and doesn’t have an easy way to access it. That’s where you come in.
Some ways to find your niche: brainstorm rabid fan groups or audiences with a common need or interest (dog lovers, anime fans, parents who love to dress up their kids in matching outfits, sailors, very tall people, people who love 90s throwback tees). These are purchase-ready populations looking to love and buy things that they’re interested in.
Then, see what’s trending on Facebook.
Doing a quick search of a phrase like “Get yours here” or “Buy now” and look at the videos featuring items for sale that are getting traction. This can give you a sense of which products are interesting people on Facebook right now.
Look for a high number of views in a short period of time, then search for the item at a dropship supplier like Oberlo or AliExpress. Consider the price-point of the item in the video and the assets you can create for it. Can you replicate — or improve on — the current trending video? If so, you may have an item worth dropshipping.
I have a few pieces of advice after you’ve taken care of all that:
Don’t sell anything dangerous or copyrighted
If you’re a beginner, don’t start with something that goes in or on a person’s body. If you do not know the quality and source of the ingredients, and something goes wrong, do you have coverage for that liability?
Also, if there’s a celebrity or character from a movie franchise on the item, it could get you in trouble. Steer clear of mice with big round ears.
Look at seller’s reviews and order a test product
How long has the seller been selling? What feedback have they been getting. When you order a test product, does it meet your expectations? What do you need to tell your customers so they’ll be happy when they receive the product?
Consider dropshipping only some items
Just because you’re dropshipping some things doesn’t mean you need to dropship everything. Perhaps it makes sense to use dropshipping for large, bulky, high-priced niche items.
Say, for example, you have an online store that sells nautical gear. You may want to personally store and ship some items, but dropship the anchors. For items like this, your customers may also be more accommodating to longer shipping times since it’s a large and more considered purchase.
Same goes for home goods: perhaps you keep small items in stock, but dropship the couches. You can increase your inventory breadth very simply this way.
Go directly to a supplier and build a dropshipping relationship with them
This is a killer plan: there’s guaranteed to be less competition. You’re basically creating a new audience for an under-marketed product that’s not getting seen by a ready-to-buy audience. If you use a database, every single other subscriber is using that same database.
You want to invest in a good domain name. It’s a key component of any ecommerce operation.
We buy all our domain names from Domain.com. (You can read our full review on the best domain registrars.)
Once you’ve done that, then you can set up your website.
If you go with Shopify, you’ll be up in minutes. Lots of dropshippers recommend the Shopify Brooklyn theme with a good font choice. You can also use another ecommerce option. Here’s our review on the best ecommerce platforms, if you’re interested in exploring.
You can get a professional logo for your site for a reasonable price (and no design expertise) with 99Designs. See my post about how to get your first brand identity on a budget for more details and how to run a logo design contest.
Make sure to set up professional email addresses for your dropshipping store. It should be a sensible start (help@, support@) with your own domain name. I recommend getting Google Workspace for $6 a month per user. There’s nothing to trust about emailing a customer service that’s at yahoo.com or gmail.com.
Here are some other key elements to factor into your planning and set up:
Give your customer strong trust signals
You can do this with high quality photos and unique item copy, a real and robust About Us page, and thoughtfully using things like discounted prices and pop-ups.
Ask yourself: Would I buy from this store? Would I feel comfortable suggesting it to a friend or family member? You’ll need some trust logos and some FAQs at minimum.
Set shipping time expectations
Most dropshipped items aren’t going to get to the customer very quickly — and in world where Amazon Prime has set the standard at two days, that means dropshipments of 30 days feel extremely slow. If you don’t prepare your customers they’ll be very unhappy.
We’ve seen very straightforward copy, like: All our items ship directly from our suppliers in China. Shipments are processed the day of your order and arrive in 25–30 days.
Make sure your orders go through
Bundle credit card orders so your bank doesn’t cancel your numerous orders. Let your bank know what types of orders and in what quantities you’ll be placing, so they’re not flagged as fraudulent. There is no pain so rich as having to reorder orders you’ve placed (you do have a business credit card, right?).
Prepare for returns and cancellations
How will you deal with unhappy customers? What’s your return policy and how will you chargeback customer payments? Will returned items be shipped to you, or to your distributor? How will that work? Like with anything in business, it’s important to set it all up from day one like it’ll be a huge success.
Set aside money to pay taxes
If you’re using Shopify as your payment gateway, once you get to a certain sales threshold, Shopify will automatically report your sales to the government. You’ll want to make sure you have money available to pay applicable taxes.
We also recommend getting an accountant and a lawyer (we’ve heard good things about UpCounsel and LegalZoom) and setting up Quicken.
A great way to stand out right from the jump is to make your store listings and ads unique.
Remember, if you can quickly and easily set up a dropshipping order for a specific product, it’s likely another store will be able to do the same. You will need to find an edge: why would someone order from you, or find your store selling the product, and not your competitor?
Make sure people know about your store. This can be through word of mouth, social media ads, viral memes, influencer programs, SEO, a newsletter. You’re going to need visitors to make sales.
Take your own pictures. Write your own copy. Shoot unique social videos. Really put thought into how to best convey the product and why a person would want it: What problems does it solve? Can it make them feel joy?
If you’re using AliExpress, you can import the user reviews. No one likes being the first to buy something.
Consider offering free shipping, too. That can really entice customers. Do all orders have free shipping or only when a certain order spend is hit? What threshold or minimum spend works best?
I do not recommend offering “Free products — you pay shipping.” Many customers would rather know the price up-front than go through a purchase flow that says $0 the whole way through and then slaps on a $15 shipping charge.
It’s 2021 and the norm is free 2-day shipping with Prime. People are catching on and aren’t happy about it. Read more from The Daily Beast in Instagram Influencers Dupe Their Fans With ‘Free’ Products.
Use ads to gather data and test strategy. We’re assuming that you’ll be buying ads. If you do, buy and use the data to test what’s working. What gets traction? Double down on it. What doesn’t? Trash it.
This may lead you to changing your products, your ad style, your audience. Following the early traction means you head toward what’s working and away from what’s not.
Get anyaltical with your sales trends, as well. What’s selling well? What’s not selling at all? Is there any common theme in the items? Replicate what you can. Stop what’s not working.
Dropshipping can be a lucrative ecommerce strategy. But it all starts with the right partner.
Choosing the best dropshipping company for you depends on the type of products you want to offer your customers, the supplier’s quality, and how well the service integrates with your process.
The dropship supplier you choose is likely to play a crucial role in starting your dropshipping business.
Every dropshipping supplier comes with its unique set of capabilities. However, you need to select an option that aligns the best with your ecommerce tools, budget, and product selection.
For instance, you should go with Oberlo if you’re already a Shopify merchant. Or you could use Spocket if you’re looking for custom US and EU goods.
Ultimately, I recommend you go with SaleHoo or Inventory Source, as they are the best dropshipping suppliers on the market.
Make sure to review different companies carefully before making your final choice.
Which supplier do you plan to use for dropshipping? Let me know in the comments below.