How Many Products Should You Have to Start Dropshipping?

When I was creating my first dropshipping store, I kept asking myself, "When can I finally open my dropshipping store? When do I have enough products in my store to start selling and start making money?" I will give you a short answer below, then dive deep into what you need to know before you open your dropshipping store!

When you're just beginning, I would suggest you import 5-20 products in your dropshipping store, but only really focus on 1-3 products. These products are going to be the first products that you're going to start advertising with. The rest of the products are there to make your store look alive and real!

But that's not all; let's dive into the article now:

How many products are enough to open your dropshipping store?

As I said above, I suggest importing between 5-20 products in your dropshipping store when you're just starting out, but you don't have to follow this number.

It all depends on what kind of dropshipping store you're building. Or maybe you have already built it!

Are you building a niche store or a general store?

If you're not sure yet if you want to have a niche store or a general store, I suggest reading my article here. It covers the most asked question: "Should I go with a general or a niche dropshipping store?" I also included all the upsides and downsides to having a general and a niche dropshipping store.

If you know already that you want a niche dropshipping store then you can click here to read my article about how to find the best niche for your dropshipping store in 2024!

Once you've figured out if you're going with a general or a niche (and what niche) dropshipping store, then it's time to think about what the best is for your situation, like how many products you should focus on at the beginning.

What if you're building a niche dropshipping store?

For example, there might be only eight products from your niche on AliExpress because you might choose a really specific niche.

The only way to find that out is to open up AliExpress and search the products around your niche. Also, don't forget when you've found your products to select the best AliExpress suppliers!

Furthermore, for a niche store, the amount of products doesn't matter as much. Just make sure all the products fit well with each other.

This is necessary for when your store is up and running so that you can do upselling. And because your niche store customers who come to your store might be more willing to check out what else you've got to offer. This could lead to more sales!

If you're not sure if your target audience would love a product, just think as the person who loves the niche that you have chosen, for example, cats, would that person love all the products I'm about to import to my store?

Another question you could ask is: "Do all my products have something to do with my niche: cats?"

If you're interested in learning more about how to start an amazing niche store, then check out this article here!

And what if you're building a general dropshipping store?

If you choose a general store, which I don't recommend but you could still do though, then the sky is the limit with the number of products you can choose from.

Although, I don't recommend starting with a general store. It could however be a great way to get started when you have no experience with marketing or ecommerce at all because you could just add any product you want to your store.

Just know that it will take a lot of effort to succeed and that success will not come overnight.

Most general stores (mine included) have got trendy products that are proven to sell. 

You're probably thinking: Trendy products? What are those?

Trendy products are products that a lot of people have bought from other stores before you started selling them.

Think about products like the fidget spinner.

If you start selling these kinds of products, a lot of people might already know them so your advertising could be different.

But everyone knowing your products already might not be a good thing. For example, would you still buy a fidget spinner right now? I don't think so.

If you're interested in learning more about how to start an amazing general store, then check out this article here!

Why you should only focus on a few products as a beginner dropshipper

Now you know that you can import as many products as you want in your new dropshipping store, but why should you only really focus on a few products?

The reason I said only really focus on 1-3 products is that a lot of people seem to think quantity equals quality, but if you can't sell one product, there is no way you will be able to sell ten products at the same time.

When you're just beginning, you need to learn so much like how to market your dropshipping products, how to write awesome converting product descriptions, and so on.

It's just too much work if you need to learn all of that and at the same time put that directly into action for around ten products.

Maybe you know it already, but there is the Pareto Principle. You can also apply this if you're dropshipping.

80% of your sales come from 20% of your products. So that means that most of your sales will come from only a few products.

So that's why I like to only focus on 1-3 products at the same time.

The rest of the products that you're not focusing on at the same time will still have a lot of value in your store. They are the so-called "filler products".

They make your store look alive and real. You want your visitors to trust you, right?

What strategy can you follow for your new dropshipping store?

What I did was I started with a general store and imported 15 products to my dropshipping store. These 15 products were carefully researched.

I knew each of these products had the potential of giving me a profit.

I'm not suggesting you should start a general store as well. This is the mistake I made when I first started out. I suggest you start with a niche store and build a brand around it. Or, find a winning product and niche around that product!

Now you have products that could bring you a lot of money imported in your dropshipping store, but you don't know if they will work for you.

What I mean with that is that not all products will work for every single store. You might see this product at a cat store as a best seller, but that doesn't mean that you will be able to definitely make it your best selling product.

That's why you test products to see if the product is working for your dropshipping store or not. I suggest learning how to quickly test products to save money!

Testing one product at the time

So, what you have now are 5-20 products (this could be more or less as you read above) all with the potential of making you profits.

Now, pick one product that you want to test out first. It doesn't really matter which one you go with first, but I suggest going with the product you like most or the one you have the most confidence in.

After you picked a product, you will need to follow the steps I laid down for you below in order to make that product ready for testing!

I will link to an article I wrote with each step. This will make sure that you completely understand how to do that step perfectly!

Excited?

Let's go!

The steps you need to follow to make your product ready for testing

• Write a converting product description. This speaks for itself I guess, but you need to write a powerful product description in order to convince your visitors to buy your product.
• Find awesome product images. These could come from your AliExpress supplier, but make sure they look awesome! You could use Photoshop to edit the background of the product. Just make sure you have the permission of your supplier to use or edit these images. Or you can use the new Glorify app! (Click here to learn more about Glorify.)

• Decide what price you should sell your product. This is an important step as well. If your price is too low, you might not make any profit at all. If your price is too high, then maybe nobody wants to buy your product. This is why it's important to price your product right, but don't worry; you can always change your price while testing the product!
• Decide your marketing platform. You need to decide which platform you're going to use to advertise your product. Are you going to use Instagram, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Pinterest, or maybe something else?
• Get or import some reviews for the product. A great way to increase the trust that your new visitors have with you is to have reviews from past customers displayed on your dropshipping store.

And then advertise that product and see if it brings you any profits!

But what if the product that you're testing doesn't bring you any profit?

If the product doesn't bring you any profit then don't advertise it anymore and go to the next product.

One last thing you could try if you think the product is not working for you is to make the product a free plus shipping offer instead of using normal retail prices. You can learn more about the free plus shipping method here.

If it all fails, or if you don't want to do any free plus shipping offers, then you need to focus on the next product.

That means that you need to follow the steps above again, but then for the new product that you're going to test.

You could, of course, still keep the product that didn't bring you any profits in your store.

What to do with the rest of the products?

Now I hear you thinking, so if I've just started, I only have to put effort into one product? What about the rest?

You should not forget about the rest of the products, but don't put all your efforts into them yet because maybe the product you're testing now is part of the 20% that will bring in all your profits!

So, what I like to do for the products that I'm not advertising yet is:

• Write a normal and small description: You have to do this because when you just import your product into your dropshipping store, you get the basic AliExpress description which looks so ugly. Just delete all of that and describe the product in a few sentences.
• Just use the AliExpress supplier images: But please be careful with copyright. One quick no-go is that if the image of the product of your supplier contains a person or brand.
• Of course, you should think about the price: People could end up buying the product after going through your store's collection. This happens not that much if you're not advertising that product or doing things like upsells, but it could happen!

The one-product dropshipping store

Another option for you when you want to build a dropshipping store, and you're not sure how many products you should start with, is to just have one product in your store.

One product?

Yes, you read it right, only one product!

Take Scott for an example: if his success story is real, then he made a six-figure ecommerce business from selling just one product on his dropshipping store.

With this business model you just focus on one thing. Nothing more. No distractions.

By focusing on just one product, you will be able to zoom in on the details that make it unique and interesting.

It's also great for your conversion rates because your store visitors will have no distractions, for example, like a store collection page.

People will come there with only one purpose: to check that one product out and that's it. The only thing left to do for them then is to check out and pay for the product (or leave your store, of course).

If you want to learn more about the one product business model for dropshipping, I suggest reading this great article here. That article contains eight great tips on how to get started with your own one-product store.

Personally, I would not suggest starting with a one-product dropshipping store if you have no experience in ecommerce at all, but if you have the perfect product in mind, then you should try it.

Otherwise, stick with a niche or general store at the beginning so you can gain the experience necessary to open a one-product dropshipping store later on in your ecommerce career!

Do you want to learn more? Here are my recommendations!

Are you currently dropshipping? Or do you want to start dropshipping?

Awesome! I’ll link to the articles below that I recommend you read next.

This way, you will be fully prepared to take your dropshipping store to the next level in 2024!

I just want to say one thing; my blog doesn’t endorse any paid dropshipping courses. (I hate them, they are the reason I created this blog.)

If you’re interested in learning why I think paid dropshipping courses are a waste of money then you can click here.

Below you will find the articles that I suggest you read next:

• 23 Most Successful Shopify Dropshipping Store Examples
• Dropshipping Startup Checklist: 10 Things to Do Before Starting
• Shopify Dropshipping: A 20-Step Guide to Starting Your Store
• The 25 Best Dropshipping Websites & Companies for Your Store

Also, if you haven't created a Shopify account yet (to get your dropshipping store online) then you can click here to get a free 3-day trial + pay $1/month for the first 3 months (don’t forget to extend it!).

Conclusion

So, yes, it doesn't matter how many products you have in your dropshipping store, but if you're just beginning with dropshipping, you should focus on only 1-3 products at the same, preferably only one!

You will learn so much each time you test a new product.

Don't forget that dropshipping success doesn't happen overnight; it takes time!

If you think you're stuck in the research phase and not sure if you can start or not then check out this article here.

Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions by commenting below, or contact me directly by pressing the "Contact Us" button at the top!