Dropshipping took the ecommerce business world by storm, with a record number of self-made millionaires and an equal number of self-proclaimed gurus, selling online courses that promise wealth and prosperity achievable at a lick of a button. Whether one believes dropshipping to be gimmick or a legitimate way of making money, one thing is clear – the hype is real.

As the year is coming to an end and people are soon to be preparing their New Year’s resolutions, one question is looming in the background: Is dropshipping still worth pursuing? Or is it too late and it became too saturated? It is a widespread belief that this business became saturated to the point that you cannot make any more money with it. For instance, here’s a statement from a user of a popular entrepreneurship forum, that sums up the communal sentiment :

  https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/

  

This question, along with a few more thought-provoking comments from other commentators can be extrapolated and what we find is the general concern that the entrepreneurship community has for this business model:

• Shipping times are way too long

• Little control of your services

• The availability is limited to unbranded products

• Returns are either too long or non-existent

• Chinese packaging indicates low quality

All of the above seems to indicate that dropshipping is slowly dying and cannot compete with services like Amazon, Ebay and such.

There is an alternative view however, that dropshipping is not dead and that it simply become more competitive as more and more people jumped on the bandwagon, as they saw the insane potential and scalability of this business model.

An important thing to keep in mind when it comes to dropshipping is that customers don’t order stuff that they need from AliExpress, for that they can go to Amazon, or their local store and get it immediately. Instead, they use AliExpress for items that they want and that are not available elsewhere.

In short, the answer is yes. It’s hard work, much harder than ten or even five years ago, when not as many people knew about it and you could get away with having a badly set up store with low quality ads. And whilst more people are doing it now, the underlying quality behind this business model remains unchanged – Dropshipping is a low cost high return business model: There’s not much upfront investment, no need to store inventory, no need to hire a lot of staff (a couple of VAs will more than suffice). All that is need is a profitable niche and winning products.

This means that one of the most important aspects of a successful dropshipping business is the product research. There are many ways to conduct a product research: You can simply browse Amazon best sellers list, go directly on AliExpress or simply Google it. The best and simplest way is to use product research tools, like SaleSource – an AI-based application offering product analyses, trend evaluations and competitor intelligence.

With or without helpful tools, ecommerce is not a child’s play, but a serious business model with a lot of potential and with internet being the crowded place as it is, you will not get anywhere without hard work. Whilst more people equals more competitions, it also equals more demand. Things like Amazon Prime are great, but not everyone in the world has access to them. Success with dropshipping in 2020 requires a few adjustments and a bit more effort, but assuming that you pick the right product and market it effectively, there is no reason why you won’t succeed with dropshipping in 2020.