The best drop­ship­ping providers

One of the biggest ad­van­tages of drop­ship­ping can already be found in its de­f­i­n­i­tion: Selling goods online without having to store or ship them yourself. Instead, these tasks fall to a whole­saler or product man­u­fac­tur­er. Such so-called drop­ship­ping providers make a wide range of products from a wide variety of man­u­fac­tur­ers available so that drop­ship­pers can put them up for sale in their online store.

In your search for a suitable provider, you will quickly discover that the choice is enormous and that each one has its own ad­van­tages and dis­ad­van­tages. For this reason, it is a smart idea to consider several factors before linking your online store to a random drop­ship­ping supplier via their plugin.

This article was last updated in September 2021.

Drop­ship­ping, refers to an e-commerce business model in which the owner of an online store sells products over the Internet without having to store or ship them them­selves. Instead, this task falls to a whole­saler or the product man­u­fac­tur­er, who is notified of the completed customer purchases and sub­se­quent­ly initiates shipment of the requested items. Thus, there is an in­ter­ac­tion between three parties: Customer, online seller and whole­saler or man­u­fac­tur­er.

This indirect form of dis­tri­b­u­tion has several ad­van­tages. By not having to invest your time in storage or product shipping, you can instead put it into running your business and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with customers. In addition, you avoid the extra costs of packaging materials and the risk of spending a lot of money on a large as­sort­ment of items that you end up stuck with if they don’t sell as expected.

However, there aren’t only ad­van­tages with drop­ship­ping. Besides the fact that you as a drop­ship­per do not deal directly with your customers, the success of your online store lies in the hands of the whole­saler or man­u­fac­tur­er from whom you source your products. A reliable drop­ship­ping provider is the be-all and end-all in this form of online commerce.

You can read more pros and cons in our article “What is drop­ship­ping?”, which gives you a com­pre­hen­sive in­tro­duc­tion to the drop­ship­ping business model. And if you already want to go one step further and focus on product selection, we recommend our article “The best drop­ship­ping products”.

As mentioned, choosing a drop­ship­ping provider is one of the most important, if not the most important, decision you will have to make as a drop­ship­ping business leader. But how do you find the perfect provider? And what factors should be con­sid­ered in the process?

To answer these questions, we’ve compiled a list of several tips you should consider when searching for a drop­ship­ping partner.

By taking on the role of your future customers and pur­chas­ing a drop­ship­ping product that interests you, you can get a personal im­pres­sion of how delivery times and item quality turn out with a par­tic­u­lar provider. You should also test the customer service to see if they leave a re­spon­sive and competent im­pres­sion. If you have a bad ex­pe­ri­ence as a customer, then you should consider this as a clear reason to look for another provider.

In addition to your own ex­pe­ri­ence, it is also a good idea to take into account the opinions of other customers. One of the best ways to check the image of a drop­ship­ping provider is to read through the reviews and tes­ti­mo­ni­als that have been published on the Internet. Both positive and negative feedback will help you know whether a retailer or man­u­fac­tur­er will make a competent drop­ship­ping partner or not.

You should also consider the location of the vendor and to which countries they ship their items. If you want to make the drop­ship­ping items in your store available to European customers, then the whole­saler’s or man­u­fac­tur­er’s delivery service should not be limited to the USA, for example, but should operate in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. In addition, European drop­ship­ping providers offer the advantage of shorter delivery times for products to Germany and the like.

Building on the previous tip, the next step is to pay attention to delivery time spec­i­fi­ca­tions and supplier types. In order to guarantee your customers the best possible shipping, it is important that you know which postal service your drop­ship­ping provider uses to ship the products and how long the delivery times are. A provider with a reliable delivery service is more at­trac­tive as a partner for your business than one that makes your customers wait several months for their ordered goods.

If you want to col­lab­o­rate with a Chinese drop­ship­ping provider, then it is rec­om­mend­ed to check whether they offer ePacket shipments. This shipping method ensures cheaper and faster product delivery from China and Hong Kong, which otherwise usually takes several months. In addition, your customers can always check online via an ePacket tracking system where their ordered goods are currently located.

Another important aspect when choosing a supplier is related to its warehouse size and main­te­nance. So you should find out if they keep a lot of products in stock and how quickly they can replenish their as­sort­ment if the need arises. In drop­ship­ping, it is quite possible that an item is suddenly out of stock, e.g. due to high demand. As a drop­ship­per, you need to inform your customers about a longer delivery time and be able to count on your partner having the item back in stock soon.

Handling certain work processes manually, such as shipment tracking and managing your product inventory, takes up a lot of time that you could be using for other tasks. For this reason, you should check if a provider offers certain features or plugins for your online store that automate such ac­tiv­i­ties.

Next, you should find out about the policies. It is important to find out what a drop­ship­ping provider’s policies are, for instance, regarding lost and damaged products, returns, as well as other reg­u­la­tions. Since your customers will be directly affected, you should make sure that the policies reflect your views and don’t contain any pro­vi­sions you may disagree with.

There are various costs involved in running a drop­ship­ping business. In terms of providers, these include shipping costs, which vary depending on the number of products, shipment weight, and delivery location. Fur­ther­more, there are also drop­ship­ping providers that charge an inventory re­stock­ing fee when items are returned by customers.

If you search for the best drop­ship­ping providers online, you will find a variety of options and even more al­ter­na­tives. Drop­ship­pers who want to sell products in Europe should focus on providers that offer shipping within Europe or even around the world. We have looked around for notable examples and gathered the most important in­for­ma­tion about them for you.

AliEx­press is a Chinese online mar­ket­place that was founded in 2010 and can be used by both companies and in­di­vid­u­als as sellers. AliEx­press is among the largest online retailers in the world and is visited by several hundred million users a month.

1. Ad­van­tages: The two biggest ad­van­tages of the platform are firstly its in­ter­na­tion­al image with multi-language support of 18 languages and secondly its product as­sort­ment of various drop­ship­ping suppliers in millions. Fur­ther­more, as a drop­ship­per, you have the option of not having to purchase large quan­ti­ties of products in advance, but can order items in­di­vid­u­al­ly once customers have purchased them from your store. This doesn’t even require con­tact­ing the product supplier directly, which is es­pe­cial­ly ben­e­fi­cial if you both speak different languages.
2. Dis­ad­van­tages: One problem you may encounter with AliEx­press is incorrect product in­for­ma­tion. Thus, it may well happen that products, photos and/or their de­scrip­tion do not match. For this reason, you should always check thor­ough­ly be­fore­hand if products and es­pe­cial­ly their suppliers or man­u­fac­tur­ers have good reviews. This is also to ensure that you do not offer coun­ter­feit goods for sale as this can lead to problems with customs. In addition, items of higher value are subject to import sales tax or even customs duties. Also note that the delivery time from China can be several weeks.
3. Summary: AliEx­press impresses with its product range in the millions and easy drop­ship­ping. However, drop­ship­pers must be careful to select good quality suppliers and products, and the often long delivery times are also a negative point.

The B2B wholesale platform BigBuy is one of the leading drop­ship­ping providers in Europe. It was able to establish itself in 2012 and since then has already won many awards in the field of e-commerce, including the eAward in the category “Best Mar­ket­place Tech­nol­o­gy” in 2018.

1. Ad­van­tages: BigBuy scores high when it comes to ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to the European region, not least because both its website and product catalog are offered in 24 languages. This is followed by a clear plus point in the form of a huge product range of over 80,000 items from various brands. These are divided into nine cat­e­gories, which include every­thing from gardening to elec­tron­ic goods. Fur­ther­more, the platform offers almost worldwide express de­liv­er­ies and shipment tracking.
2. Dis­ad­van­tages: Since BigBuy is con­sid­ered one of the largest European drop­ship­ping whole­salers, many drop­ship­pers ac­cord­ing­ly resort to it and its products. As a result, the com­pe­ti­tion is very strong, which can make it difficult for your store to succeed in business. Another dis­ad­van­tage is that shipping options and delivery times vary from country to country. This means that de­liv­er­ies can take more time if the supplier and customer are far away from each other - for example, in Portugal and Finland.
3. Summary: BigBuy impresses with a large, versatile product catalog and a high degree of ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty thanks to pro­fes­sion­al trans­la­tions into numerous languages. However, this also involves a dis­ad­van­tage, because the huge number of drop­ship­pers that can access BigBuy results in strong com­pe­ti­tion and makes it difficult to stand out with one’s own online store.

The Canada-based drop­ship­ping platform Spocket was founded in 2017. Its CEO Saba Mohebpour was once one of the people wanting to open their own online store. But when he couldn’t find a way to source items from local drop­ship­ping providers, he made it his mission to develop a program that would do just that. And the result was: Spocket.

1. Ad­van­tages: The platform offers you not only a selection of thousands of drop­ship­ping suppliers of European and American origin that have pre­vi­ous­ly undergone ver­i­fi­ca­tion, but also a wide variety of products of the most diverse cat­e­gories. Thanks to product samples, you can even get an idea of an item yourself and only then decide whether you want to offer it in your store. In addition, Spocket always shows you the current stock level due to automatic updates. So there is no danger of offering products that are in fact not available. And if you have any questions about the platform or drop­ship­ping in general, a help center is available.
2. Dis­ad­van­tages: Due to the high number of users, Spocket un­for­tu­nate­ly does not offer a way to contact drop­ship­ping suppliers directly. The large volume of messages that would otherwise arrive could never be properly addressed. Another dis­ad­van­tage compared to other drop­ship­ping providers is the fact that Spocket cannot be used on many larger platforms such as Amazon and eBay. And if you don’t want to commit to Spocket right away, the trial period is only 14 days. After that, you’ll need to select either a Starter, Pro, Empire, or Unicorn sub­scrip­tion and pay a monthly fee that doesn’t include customs duties and taxes.
3. Summary: Spocket offers drop­ship­pers and man­u­fac­tur­ers or suppliers a place to come together and benefit from each other. Plus, there is a wide selection of items and product cat­e­gories to choose from. However, there is a monthly usage fee for the platform that you have to recoup in order to even­tu­al­ly be in the green.

Head­quar­tered in San Francisco, the Modalyst platform was launched in 2012 at MIT, the Mass­a­chu­setts Institute of Tech­nol­o­gy, as a whole­saler. Their drop­ship­ping software was added three years later and has been gaining notoriety ever since.

1. Ad­van­tages: Modalyst allows you to directly com­mu­ni­cate with drop­ship­ping suppliers, for example, to get more in­for­ma­tion about specific products. If you have any further questions, you can also contact Modalyst’s customer service, which offers its regular support via both live chat and email. In terms of products, the platform offers an as­sort­ment in the millions, which allows you to give your online store a range of goods with an in­di­vid­ual character. Drop­ship­ping beginners in par­tic­u­lar can rejoice: The first sub­scrip­tion option with an item limit of 25 products is free of charge.
2. Dis­ad­van­tages: Although Modalyst allows its users a free hobby sub­scrip­tion, it is severely limited compared to its al­ter­na­tives. To access more drop­ship­ping suppliers as well as those in the premium class, one has to upgrade their sub­scrip­tion and pay a monthly amount of $35 (item limit: 250) or $90 (no item limit and access to all suppliers). In addition, the platform charges a five percent trans­ac­tion fee.
3. Summary: Modalyst has one of the widest product ranges in the drop­ship­ping world and a reliable service to turn to when the need arises. However, if you want to pursue drop­ship­ping as more than a hobby and offer a wider range of products, you’ll need to sign up for one of the more expensive sub­scrip­tions.

Founded in 2013, Printful offers drop­ship­ping in com­bi­na­tion with print-on-demand and has pro­duc­tion fa­cil­i­ties in various locations around the world. With the help of Printful, over 37 million products have been printed and delivered.

1. Ad­van­tages: Printful offers you products of different cat­e­gories to which you can transfer high quality print samples. In addition, a clear design tool is available, as well as a library where you can save your graphics, which makes it much easier to create items with your own design. Moreover, since Printful is ac­ces­si­ble in various languages and has ware­hous­es in both the USA and Europe, you are assured of a wide customer reach. Another advantage is the elim­i­na­tion of a monthly usage fee if you choose the free sub­scrip­tion.
2. Dis­ad­van­tages: The products that Printful offers you are limited to the cat­e­gories of clothing, ac­ces­sories and other items that can be printed (for example, lazy-bags and pillows). Thus, with Printful you can only create a very limited range of goods in your online store compared to other drop­ship­ping providers. Another dis­ad­van­tage is the fact that a design cannot be trans­ferred to another type of product. So, for example, if you create a top with a sun motif, they will have to save it and start from scratch for the next product. This activity can take a lot of time. Also, the profit margin tends to be low when selling print-on-demand items.
3. Summary: Printful is a good drop­ship­ping provider for people who want to sell specific designs on different types of products. With the right idea, drop­ship­pers can achieve some success here, but otherwise the profit margin for print-on-demand products is rather low. In addition, you are very limited in terms of product selection.

All the drop­ship­ping providers we have in­tro­duced to you in this article offer the option to link with e-commerce websites. This means that as a drop­ship­per, you can easily connect your online store to a drop­ship­ping provider and thereby import their products into your sales as­sort­ment.

This in­te­gra­tion works via a drop­ship­ping plugin that you can download and install. Here, it should be noted that there are different types of plugins that can be used, depending on the e-commerce platform you use. Among the best WooCom­merce drop­ship­ping plugins are AliDrop­ship, Spocket, and Dropified, which allow you to fill your online store’s inventory with just a few clicks. Drop­ship­pers also use so-called social media plugins to help their e-commerce website gain pop­u­lar­i­ty.