Alright, let me ask you this question: did you pick a dropshipping niche because you're passionate about it or because someone said it's profitable?
Well, I will show you below how to find out if your niche could be profitable in 2024 or not. This way, you can figure out if you've got an audience for your "Parrot Cookies," haha.
Just a quick warning, it's a big article. I will cover everything that you can check to see if your dropshipping niche has the potential to be profitable in 2024!
If you're ready, then let's go!
What is a dropshipping niche?
Let's start off with this one.
Do you know what a dropshipping niche means?
If so, you can scroll down!
But if not, then this is for you:
A dropshipping niche means having a store catered for the type of people with the same interests.
For example, having a dropshipping store with only dog products because you want to target people who love dogs.
Furthermore, a niche can be divided into two different kinds of niches.
You have the steady and the trendy niche.
If you want to learn more about what a steady and trendy niche is, then I suggest reading this article here.
How to find a dropshipping niche in 2024
In this article, we will go over all the things that you can check to see if that dropshipping niche is profitable or not.
But if you want to get some inspiration on how to find a niche, I suggest reading this article here as well:
How to Find the Best Niche for Dropshipping? (7 Methods)
I suggest you create a list with more than one niche option. So you won't be stuck if you find out that, for example, your only niche option has no traffic potential on Google.
For example, maybe the only niche on your list is "Parrot Cookies for Green Parrots."
Well, to be honest, I didn't check it, but I am 99% sure that not many people are searching for that.
But more on that below where I will give you all the tips to find out if a dropshipping niche could be profitable in 2024!
I also suggest you read the Top 10 Dropshipping Niches to Avoid as a Beginner before you pick the wrong niche.
So, let's find out if your dropshipping niche could be profitable in 2024
So you've got your list of possible niches for your dropshipping store!
Let's figure out if one of them has the potential to be profitable.
Just to note, with profitable, I don't mean that it's 100% a sure bet that you're going to turn a profit with that niche.
It just means that it has a better chance of turning into a profitable dropshipping niche store than another niche!
Also, if you do pick a niche, then please pick a niche that you’re at least a bit interested in.
I wrote a great piece about that in my other article here:
This is another big reason why people fail with their dropshipping store. They pick a niche for their dropshipping store just because they think they can earn money with it.
They don’t think about the future, “the grind”, the time that they need to work, and work on their store before they see success (if they ever do) — for example, the time before you see your first sale might be a while.
If you’re not interested at all in your niche, then this period will be really hard for you.
A lot of people give up after some time, simply because they are bored with their niche.
For example, don’t pick gardening as your dropshipping niche if you hate gardening yourself.
You will have a hard time communicating with your customers, maybe making blog posts, coming up with newsletters, or simply writing product descriptions that convert your target audience into buyers (people that love gardening).
From this article written by me
So, are you ready to see how to figure out which niche from your list has the best chances?
Let's begin!
In these steps, I will use the dog niche as an example with the United States as my target country.
Which you probably already know is a profitable niche, but you hopefully also know that there is a lot of competition inside that niche.
A lot of dropshippers start with a dog store.
So, let's take this as an example of how to do this profitable niche research!
1. Check other dropshipping stores
Let's start with checking if other dropshipping stores are selling inside the niche that you're currently researching.
Do you know what the great thing is about checking other dropshipping stores?
Inspiration!
If you see other dropshipping stores selling products inside the niche that you're interested in, there is a high chance that that niche is profitable.
Definitely, if you can find a lot of dropshipping stores inside your niche.
And even better is if these dropshipping stores are older. (More information about checking how old a website is here.)
Because why would they keep their store open if their niche is not bringing in any money?
How to find other dropshipping stores
If you're not sure how to find other dropshipping stores, then I suggest reading one of my articles I've linked below:
- How to Find Other Dropshipping Stores? (5 Amazing Tips)
- How to Figure out Who the Competition Is of Your Dropshipping Store?
These articles contain some great tips on how to find other dropshipping stores!
One thing to note, if one of the tips says that you need to fill in your niche, then fill in the niche that you're currently researching!
Awesome, right?
Check if these dropshipping niche stores are looking great
Now that you have found some dropshipping stores inside your niche, it's time to look to see if they are great or not.
Why?
Well, if these dropshipping stores are just normal dropshipping stores with nothing special, and it doesn't look they are getting any traffic, then that might mean that that niche doesn't do anything for them.
Another great thing about this is that if you decide to pick the niche where you know who your competition is, you know what they are able to do better!
For example, take a look at these 5 bad dropshipping store examples.
I went through everything that they are doing wrong and that they could do better.
You can use this critical thinking when you're researching the dropshipping stores inside your niche!
But how to check if they are looking great or not?
Let's find out:
How to check if these dropshipping stores are looking great?
I will give you a bullet point list of what you can look at below:
- Their store design. Do they all look like normal dropshipping stores (no time & effort)? Then that might be a sign that there is no money being made (or it means that everyone that you picked is lazy, so don't take this point too literally!).
- But if you've got a store like Meowingtons in between them, then that could be a sign that money can be made inside that niche! (More information about Meowingtons here or watch the video above.)
- Their social media pages. Just go through all the social media pages that you can find. Some stores will add a link to them from their store website. With others, you might need to dig a bit deeper!
If you've found their social media pages, take a look to see if they are getting a lot of likes and how their posts are doing. Does it look like there are a lot of people active inside your niche on that social media platform?
- Their Facebook Ads. Check if they are currently running any Facebook Ads. And if so, how are they looking? A lot of engagement? Click here to learn more about how to see what Facebook Ads a dropshipping store is running.
- Their shipping time. Check their shipping time. Do they have the same shipping time as most dropshippers (2-4 weeks)? Or does it look like they've got a local supplier?
- For the example above, they have their shipping time to the US set really low. This could mean that their business is going great (and their niche) and that they are in need of store improvements, like faster delivery times.
Now let's move on to the next steps that you can take to see if your niche could be profitable in 2024 or not!
2. Check to see if free traffic is possible
This step is great.
You're going to check if it's possible to get free traffic inside your niche.
Because if there is, there is a high chance that you can sell your products with paid advertising as well!
If you want to learn more about getting free traffic to your dropshipping store, then I suggest clicking here or on the image below!
1. Google Trends
Let's continue with checking on Google Trends if people are searching for things inside your niche.
As you can see, the dog niche is a steady niche throughout the year.
Which means that there is a demand for this niche throughout the whole year.
And demand means that there are potential customers!
For example, this is what the opposite looks like:
Do you see that only a few days a year is that search term relevant?
If you have something like that that shows up when you're typing in your niche, it means that there is not much demand throughout the year, only at certain time periods.
Another example for that is Christmas!
Do you look for Christmas presents, decorations, recipes, and so on throughout the year? Or only close to the Christmas period?
Let's dive a bit deeper inside Google Trends
Alright, now you know that there is a demand for your niche throughout the year.
Or you could be happy with the spikes throughout the year!
Just don't forget to look at other timestamps as well. Like the weekly ones.
Now it's time to continue with searching a bit deeper inside Google Trends by typing in less broad terms.
For example, "dog toy," "dog supplies," maybe even "puppy" or a specific dog breed.
As you can see with dog toys, there are still spikes (around Christmas and New Year), but, unlike Valentine's Day, it doesn't drop to the bottom.
There is still demand for that throughout the year.
I suggest that you look at a few different things inside your niche.
This way, you will have a good understanding if people are searching for your niche, and if so, for what?
Another great way to find out what your target audience is searching for on Google is to scroll down a bit in Google Trends:
You will find a lot of information regarding what kind of queries and topics are popular!
This is also a great thing to look at if you're looking for things to write about inside your niche for your blog on your store.
If you're interested in learning more about Google Trends, like how to use it with your research, then check out this article for six great tips!
Next up is checking social media platforms.
I won't go into detail with each social media platform because the goal is the same for each.
The goal is to see if there are people active inside your niche but also what kind of platforms they are most active one
You can find more information about all these free traffic options in this article here.
Facebook Groups
The first one is Facebook Groups.
If there are groups available inside your niche, then you can join these groups to answer questions, provide value, and so on.
Try to build up your reputation inside your niche!
Next up is checking Instagram.
Check to see if there are a lot of Instagram pages inside your niche and if they've got a lot of followers!
If so, then that's a great sign that there are people in your niche.
Plus, you can see if these people are active on Instagram.
You can see that by checking how many followers most of these pages have.
Pinterest is a bit different because there are a few niches that will do very well on this social media platform.
For example, Pinterest works best in these niches:
- Fashion/beauty
- Food
- Auto
- Home decor
- Travel
- Antiques & collectibles, which is a major industry dominated by Pinterest (see picture below)
You can learn more about dropshipping with Pinterest in this article here.
3. Check websites like Reddit
Next up is checking websites like Reddit to see if you can answer questions there and to see if there are people active.
Again, I won't go into detail for each because the goal is the same for all.
We are checking to see if there are people active on these platforms!
And if so, do you think that you can get free traffic to your dropshipping store inside your niche on one (or more) of these platforms?
The first one is checking Reddit.
Quora
The second one is checking Quora.
Forums
And the last one is checking to see if there are forums inside the niche that you're currently researching.
For example:
4. Check YouTube
The last one is checking on YouTube to see if there are any big YouTube channels/videos inside the niche that you're researching.
Because, as you can read here, video marketing is very important for ecommerce and dropshipping stores in 2024!
3. Check Amazon & AliExpress
You probably already checked these websites when you were researching for a niche (or maybe when you were doing product research).
Now I want you to check them again!
Look to see if your niche is selling well on these websites.
For example, are there are a lot of dog products on Amazon?
If you can see a lot of different products inside your niche that look like they can be dropshipped, and you see that they are getting a lot of orders, then that's a great sign that there is money being made in that niche!
The great thing is that you can also see what sub-niches there are inside your niche:
The next website that you can check is AliExpress:
Again, do you see a lot of different products with a lot of orders?
If so, that's again a great sign that people are making money in that niche!
Keep in mind that you don't need to use AliExpress for dropshipping, it's just a reference point to see if people are purchasing products inside your niche.
You could even combine this step with your product research!
So, the goal of this step is checking to see if there are products inside the niche on either Amazon or AliExpress (or both) and if these products are being sold or not.
If there are a lot of products available and being sold, then this could mean that it is a very profitable niche!
4. Check paid advertisement options
The last, and best, option is to check the paid advertisement options.
To see if there are people inside your niche on these platforms!
Do you know why this is one of the best options?
Because there is a high chance that you're going to use paid advertising to advertise the products on your dropshipping store.
You can also use this research to see which platform to target first with your paid advertising.
I will cover the most important two below (Google & Facebook).
But if you're interested in learning more about different ways to advertise your dropshipping store, then I suggest reading 10 Ways to Advertise Your Dropshipping Store (No Facebook!), written by me.
Just use the same tactics for these advertisement platforms as you've learned above and will learn below!
This way, you can research your niche on these platforms as well.
How awesome is that?
1. Google Keyword Planner
First off is checking the Google Keyword Planner.
This way, you can research how competitive that niche is on Google.
This will give you a good idea of what your success in that niche might be.
For example:
As you can see, there are a lot of monthly searches for these ads.
And Google will even give you some tips on how to broaden your search.
2. Check Facebook Audience
You're probably thinking about using Facebook to advertise your dropshipping products.
That's why it's wise to check to see if there are people on Facebook inside the niche that you're researching!
I suggest you go to the Audience Insights tool of Facebook.
For example, this is what you get when you target the United States and type in 'Dog' as interested:
This tool even shows you what your audience consists of.
You can clearly see that 65% of people who are on Facebook, live in the United States, and have "Dogs" as interested, are women!
Plus, you can see that the audience contains 70-80 million people!
But that number can be less as well, for example, if you're researching people that have interest in "Hot Dog":
I'm not sure if hot dogs will be relevant to you, but I thought it would be funny to add!
If you want to learn more about the Facebook Audience Insights tool, then I suggest watching this great video below:
25 dropshipping niche ideas for your store
If, after reading this article, you need some inspiration on what kind of dropshipping niches are out there, then I've got a great article for you!
This article contains 25 awesome niche ideas that you can use right now for your store.
Curious? Then click on the link below!
The 25 Best Dropshipping Niche Ideas for Your Store in 2024
Conclusion
So, there you have it!
All the platforms and tools that you can use to check to see if your dropshipping niche could be profitable in 2024 or not.
Don't forget that the most important thing about selecting a niche for your dropshipping store is not profit but if you like the niche or not.
The first few months are going to be hard if you, for example, hate dogs and you create a dog store...
If you're interested in more tips for your niche store, check out this article, where you will find seven great tips on how to start your own niche store!
And if you have any suggestions for this article or if you've got any questions about dropshipping in general, let me know by commenting below or contacting me directly by pressing the “Contact Us” button at the top.
Also, let me know if this article helped you gain more confidence in your dropshipping niche!
I wish you the best with your dropshipping niche research!
Getting Started with Dropshipping in 2024
So, are you ready to get started with dropshipping? Or maybe you have already started, but you’re looking to get some inspiration?
If so, then I suggest reading my complete Shopify dropshipping guide!
It's a huge article, but it contains everything that you need to know to create your own Shopify dropshipping store in 2024. It's like a dropshipping course, but free!
Reading this article will help you to get started and stay motivated while beginning and continuing your dropshipping journey!
Just don’t forget that success takes time. Keep improving each and every day!
Shopify Dropshipping: A 20-Step Guide to Starting Your Store
Here are some of our best articles:
- AliExpress Dropshipping: A 20-Step Getting Started Guide (2024)
- The Complete Guide: Can You Start Dropshipping Without Money in 2024?
- 12 Reasons Why Most People Fail With Dropshipping in 2024 | Beat Them!
- The 17 Best Winning Dropshipping Product Research Tools
Also, if you want to get started with Shopify, then you can click here to get a free 3-day trial + pay $1/month for the first 3 months!
2 Comments
is meowingtons a shopify store
Hi,
Thank you for your comment! Yes, Meowingtons is indeed a Shopify store.
In case you’re interested, you can double-check it by using a site like this one here.
Good luck with everything!
– Richard