You’ve found the perfect item to dropship, and many sellers are willing to send it to you. Now all you have to do is make a page for your product and promote it on social media sites.
You do that because you think you’re just a little bit away from making a six-figure income. Then you open your analytics, but all you hear in your dashboard is the sound of crickets. What went wrong?
You’re dropshipping the wrong thing, my friend.
A thing that shouldn’t have been considered in the first place because it’s either
- Too big for shipping
- Costs too much to get.
- Too small to grow.
But you shouldn’t blame yourself because you didn’t know any better. Who really talks about the worst things to dropship, anyway?
It turns out that there are just as many bad products as there are good ones. As a new store owner, you may have a better chance of success if you act wisely and stay away from certain products.
Products that you should never drop ship
In this post, I’ll tell you about the 13 worst products to dropship and why you shouldn’t sell them in your store.
Furniture
Even though you can make a lot of money selling furniture, this product will almost certainly give you trouble.
That’s because selling furniture goes against one of the most important rules for people who want to start dropshipping, which is that you should never dropship something that the supplier can’t send via ePacket and other cheap shipping methods.
Because they have a size limit, channels like ePacket are fast and cheap. For example, for ePacket shipping, a package must weigh less than 2 KGS and be 90 cm by 60 cm.
Because it’s unlikely that furniture will meet any of these requirements, you’ll need to choose a different way to ship it.
Many times, other ways of shipping cost more, and sometimes even more than the item itself. Also, they can take a lot longer to get to your customer than an ePacket.
So, if you don’t want to ruin the experience, sell something other than furniture.
You could sell pillowcases as one idea. Think about pillow covers for the couch, the bed, and other places. These items are also home decor, but they are small enough that suppliers can send them using ePacket.
Electric Guitar
The electric guitar is the next worst thing to dropship.
Why? Because it’s too expensive to get hold of and can make it hard to make a profit.
For new dropshippers, the best price range is under $100, but it’s rare to find an electric guitar in that price range.
Check out this page on AliExpress:
As you can see, a single unit from most suppliers costs between $200 and $300. Now ask yourself, “Can I charge a lot for this item?” The price is already too high to do that.
Your goal should be to find products that cost no more than $100, including the cost of shipping. This way, even after you take into account the cost of making the product, shipping it, and advertising it, you’ll still make a good profit.
Drinking Glass
If you buy goods in China, it takes a while for the goods to get to your customers because of shipping.
During logistics, there is a chance that the product will be hit from the outside, like when it is being loaded onto a delivery vehicle.
This is why you should never buy anything made of glass.
There’s a good chance that drinking glasses and other similar items will break, and it wouldn’t be a good sign if the product arrived broken.
A better way to do it is to look for the same kind of item in a different material and dropship it. For example, drinking cups made of plastic are less likely to get broken than those made of glass.
But if you still want to sell these items or try dropshipping, I suggest you talk to your supplier.
Ask them what kinds of steps they can take to keep the item safe. Maybe they are known for delivering fragile items to customers in great shape. Who can say?
Supplements
There’s nothing stopping you from dropshipping supplements, except that you won’t be able to make cool ads on Facebook.
Why? Because Facebook doesn’t let people advertise products that claim to be good for your health.
That’s too bad, because the best advertising for supplements is the kind that makes more than one claim.
Can you imagine buying a muscle-building pill that doesn’t say something like, “This pill will give you five times the gains in a month” or something similar?
You have to follow Facebook’s rules if you want to use its large list of buyers.
If you advertise something and say that it will make someone’s mind or body better, your ad will be taken down and your account could be banned.
After seeing a lot of store owners make this mistake, I think fitness accessories are a better idea.
You’ll be able to reach the same health-conscious people if you sell these, but you won’t have any trouble running a Facebook campaign.
Safety Helmet
If you dropship this item, you put yourself in a catch-22 situation.
Sure, it’s supposed to keep people safe, but what do you think might happen if someone has an accident and your product breaks?
Worse, what if it breaks all the way?
If something bad happens to that person, it’s likely that you will be sued for selling a broken item. Fines and penalties can make it hard for you to pay your bills.
Because of this, I think safety helmets, mouth guards, and similar items are some of the worst things to dropship.
If you still want to sell any of these things, please do some research so you know what you’re getting into.
There are also rules in some countries about what you can sell online. Make sure you don’t sell something that was only supposed to be sold by government agencies.
Clothes for Everyone
You can’t expect to sell general clothing because it isn’t as appealing as it needs to be for your audience.
This is because there are already a lot of brands on the market that sell all kinds of clothes in different styles and designs.
Companies like Zara and H&M make both cheap and expensive clothes, but Uniqlo is getting a lot of attention because it sells high-quality clothes at a low price.
Do you think people will buy the same things from your store when they can easily buy them from a brand outlet nearby?
Even if you get some orders, you’ll still have to deal with things like sizing and quality, since the clothes on AliExpress and other supplier websites are better.
So, I really think you should give up on the idea of dropshipping general clothing.
Find something trendy to sell if you want to stay in this niche.
Counterfeit Shoes
You may have seen these on a list of things you can’t advertise on social media.
Products that aren’t real, like the one in the picture, are copies of a real brand.
If you dropship them, you and the supplier could both get in trouble with the law.
Dropshipping fake items can also make your customers feel let down, especially if they thought the item was real and then found out it was a fake.
There is a legal way to do this, and that is to get a license from the brand. In this case, you’d need a license from Nike.
Since it’s almost impossible for new dropshippers to get a license for this product, it’s best to stay away from it.
Instead, you can sell shoes that have the supplier’s own brand on them.
Many AliExpress sellers have their own brand that isn’t protected by a trademark. You shouldn’t be afraid to sell their shoes.
Accessories Waterproof
It would be hard not to put waterproof items on this list.
This is why: Most of the time, you don’t know if an accessory is waterproof, and if it is, you don’t know how deep you can go underwater with it.
It’s possible that when the customer tries out the accessory with the thing it was made for, the thing breaks.
For example, if you sell a waterproof camera case that turns out not to be very safe. How do you think the customer will feel when they find out they just lost the money they worked so hard to save?
This is why regular product accessories are better to dropship than waterproof ones.
Household Items
Household items are important and can be found almost everywhere.
For dropshipping to work, you need to sell things that are hard to find in regular stores.
Would you wait two weeks to get a tissue box that you could also buy at the store next door?
Most likely not.
So, don’t try to dropship common items like a tissue box if you don’t have something special to offer.
You could sell this instead of a regular tissue box, for example.
A cool-looking tissue box? “I’ll take one, please.”
If you’re going to sell household items, give people a reason to wait longer than if they bought it from a store nearby.
Dangerous Products
The thing in this picture is a great example of something that could be dangerous.
A person in charge of letting things into the country would probably ask about these things and could even stop them from coming in.
Every country has its own rules about what it can and can’t import, and many of those rules also apply to what consumers can buy online.
Some countries might have rules about dropshipping hunting tools, items related to the military, and defense products.
If you’re not sure if it’s safe and legal to ship a product to a customer’s country, ask them to check with their local chamber of commerce.
If you still have doubts after confirmation, it’s best to forget about the item in question and dropship something else instead.
Cosmetics
If you want to dropship cosmetics like face powder and makeup brushes, I suggest you think twice.
This is because you don’t know anything about the quality of the products your customers will use. Like lipstick, face masks, or foundations.
There are a lot of things that can go wrong. For example, the buyer could have an allergic reaction or skin irritation after using your product because their skin could be sensitive to an ingredient you didn’t even know was in it.
Before ordering a batch of cosmetics, it’s best to do some research, just like you would with a safety helmet.
In other words, don’t go into this area if you don’t know exactly what the products are made of.
Bottoms Tight
You’ve probably seen some funny “expectations vs. reality” posts about clothes on Facebook, and this is exactly what could happen if you dropship tight bottoms.
When a customer can’t try on pants before buying them, it could cause the store owner a lot of trouble.
The biggest problem you’ll have is that Asian, US, and European sizes are all different. Even in the same store, sizes vary from brand to brand. So, it’s clear that the sizes of products drop-shipped from China will be different.
Most of the time, Chinese sizes are one to two sizes smaller than US or European sizes. If you want to sell in the US, you’ll have to tell people to buy a size up.
In some cases, a size chart can help, but most people will just order the same size they always do.
One solution is to include a disclaimer that tells them to order a size or two bigger, but that’s not the best way to treat your visitors.
The best thing to do is not dropship clothing that is too small.
Cheap Bracelets
The cheap bracelet is the last worst item to dropship.
People rarely pull out their wallets for fake jewelry, so you won’t be able to sell these at a high profit.
Also, getting this item from AliExpress for a low price means that your customer will get a very low-quality item.
On top of that, people already know that AliExpress has cheap jewelry for sale. Here are a few reasons why I think you should never buy this product.
Conclusion
This is the last item on our list of the worst things to dropship. I hope this article was helpful and that you won’t try to sell these things in your store.
You should already have other plans, I hope. But if you don’t, watch this tutorial on how to research dropshipping products.
