Hi guys, my supplier has been taking a few days just to process orders and every time I ask they say it’ll ship tomorrow. Then tomorrow comes and nothing changes. I’m not doing enough volume for a private agent yet so I’m looking at fulfillment services like Zendrop. Has anyone used them with a smaller store? How long do your orders usually take to ship after you pay?

Hi,

Anyone else noticed that 2026 came with higher Facebook ad prices?

I ran a small side-hustle hobby store dropshipping, which made 26k usd revenue from May 2025 until Feb 2026, but starting 2026 if felt like something snapped from Facebook side and same ads started to perform worse. Also my pixel glitched out and started to track every site visit ad add-to-cart. I stopped running ads since March 2026.

My store made around 700 usd profit per month on average, which wasn't much, but it was a nice hobby money for myself.

We are handbags manufacturer from India making very high fashion- resort wear bags suitable for boutique stores or online selling (something like cult gaia brand).
We are good to start with MOQs as low as 5 units in each style.
If you are looking for a vendor, we can be a great choice.

I'm evaluating paid Shopify themes and noticed that demos often look impressive, but technical quality varies a lot. As a merchant, should I care about Lighthouse/PageSpeed scores and Schema markup before purchasing, or are these things developers worry about later? Have you ever chosen (or rejected) a theme because of its technical quality rather than just its design and features?

I run a golf accessories store (linksidecustoms.com). All my traffic so far has been organic, and before I put real money into campaigns I want to fix the obvious conversion problems first. I’m on vacation right now so I can’t make the changes yet, but I drafted the full list and figured I’d post it here for feedback before I start. Tear it apart.
1. Trust info under the Add to Cart button. Raise the product price to $35–40 with free US shipping built in, then list it right under the button so people know exactly what they’re paying for: free shipping to all of the US, international shipping available (with a clickable list of countries so shoppers can check if they’re covered), and 30-day returns/refunds.
2. Replace the supplier product images. Current photos show the supplier’s logo, which clashes with the store — customers see “Linkside Customs” and then a completely different brand on the product, and it makes reverse-image searching the product trivial. Swapping these for lifestyle shots: the product on the course, in use, in real hands. Way more authentic than stock images.
3. New hero shot. Right now it’s just a golfer, which doesn’t communicate the product or give an immediate CTA. Three options I’m considering: (a) close-up of someone holding the product open, arm in frame, golf course grass in the background; (b) the product sitting conveniently in a golf cart, so shoppers visualize actually using it; (c) the product clipped onto a golf bag — this one targets all golfers, not just cart players. Whichever wins gets a strong CTA over it that sends people straight to the product page.
4. Set up reviews properly (Judge.me). I have Judge.me installed but haven’t fully set it up. Plan: automated post-purchase review request emails, a small incentive (like a discount code) for honest photo reviews, and the review widget displayed on the product page. Reviews basically work like an FAQ — if a shopper is wondering “will I actually use this long-term?”, a real customer saying they’ve had it for months answers that better than I can. Zero social proof is my biggest trust problem right now.
5. More visible CTA buttons. Make Shop Now and Add to Cart impossible to miss so buying takes zero effort. Small change, but I’ve learned that everything counts.
6. Shipping reassurance. Show timelines up front: ships in 2–3 days, arrives in 5–7. Delivery anxiety is the biggest killer in dropshipping — everyone is calibrated to Amazon same-day/2-day shipping, and if a shopper suspects they’ll be waiting a month, that session is dead. Telling them immediately fixes it.
7. Fix the color scheme. The dark green top bar and main page don’t work with the hero shot, and they’ll still clash after the hero changes since the new one will have a similar background. Needs a palette that matches.
8. Rework the top bar offer. Swap “free shipping on orders over $50” for something like “buy 2, get 20% off” or a buy-one-get-one — still need to run the math on margins to see what actually works. This is testing-phase stuff that’ll matter most once ads are live, but I want the store solid before I spend on campaigns.
9. Move the wheel-spin popup to the product page. Instead of hitting people the second they land, let them settle in on the homepage, then trigger the spin on the product page with a ~10 second delay — that’s when they’re actually deciding whether to buy, so the incentive lands harder. Should help homepage speed too. I’ll A/B test placement later.
10. Real urgency instead of evergreen offers. Rather than permanent free shipping, run genuinely limited promos — e.g., free shipping this weekend only, and actually end it when it ends. Only show stock counts if they reflect real inventory. The urgency should come from offers that are actually expiring, not from timers that reset.
After this list is done, I’m moving from organic to actual campaigns, which will also let me A/B test properly. What would you add, cut, or prioritize first? Thanks — leave advice please.

I am creating a store, and I have linked my feed with GMC through Google & YouTube App.
Now I have a house address as my office address in Shopify
Google & YouTube App is sending that address as fulfillment location to GMC.
What should I do here?
Should I turn off location sharing from G&Y App?
Or is Google good with that?
Because I am not going to ship from that location and I have vendors who are going to ship from their warehouses.
Please give some real case scenarios.

I am a complete newbie in this business started 2 weeks ago

I have shipped around 20 orders now some got returned & some got cancelled but I am still not in loss but not much profit either.

I have been marketing it via Meta ads for now but is there any more efficient way in which I can generate some meaningful amount of orders that get successfully delivered so I don't have to take loss for cancelled orders

Any help or guidance is appreciated 😊

I was thinking about how differently people look at abandoned carts.

Some store owners treat every abandoned cart as a lost customer, while others seem to accept that a certain percentage of people were never planning to buy in the first place.

As a shopper, I've abandoned carts for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes I wanted to compare prices, sometimes shipping costs changed my mind, and sometimes I just got distracted and forgot about it.

I recently noticed Recoverly AI while reading about how stores try to understand abandoned carts, and it made me wonder whether recovery is really about bringing customers back or simply learning why they left in the first place.

If you shop online often or run an ecommerce store, what do you think? Are abandoned carts mostly unavoidable, or are there checkout mistakes that businesses still haven't figured out?

Spent half my morning tweaking stuff that should just work. Starting to wonder if I picked the wrong theme or if they're all like this. What are you using and how's it treating you?

Wrapped up something this week I've been running for a while, a dog supplement brand called PawFresh. Sold it for $8k, but the more interesting part is what actually got it there.

The niche was dog skin/allergy and gut health issues, evergreen pain point, people don't blink at price when it's their dog's health. What made it work wasn't the product itself (there's a hundred versions of it out there), it was three things:

1. Sourcing through a private agent instead of generic suppliers. Cut return and complaint rates way down, which mattered more than people think, one bad batch of reviews can kill an account faster than any ad problem.
2. Building the funnel around the actual pain point, not the product category. Instead of "dog supplements," the store spoke directly to the specific thing keeping owners up at night, itchy skin at 2am, embarrassing gas, whatever it was for that customer.
3. Repeat purchase built in from day one. Subscriptions on a consumable product changes the whole math, you're not just chasing new customers constantly.

By the end it had 2,000+ customers on the list and consistent Meta ad performance with a couple of dialed in angles.

Selling it wasn't really about the store underperforming, more a structural thing on my end, I'm based somewhere Shopify Payments and Stripe doesn't support, so past a certain point I can't keep scaling stuff myself. That's actually been the bigger lesson of the last few years, the execution part (research, building, testing, scaling) was never the hard part for me. Figuring out how to work around infrastructure limitations was.

Anyway, happy to answer questions if anyone's running something similar or thinking about the pet/supplement space

Two weeks ago, I decided to try dropshipping and see whether I could make it work.

I am not expecting to make thousands immediately. My first goal is simply to generate my first few hundred dollars, understand the process, and see whether I can eventually build something sustainable.

I do not live in the US or Canada, so one of my first challenges was payment processing. I started the process of creating a US LLC, which should hopefully be approved in the coming days. After that, I still need to complete the remaining steps, such as getting the EIN, setting up the required business details, and opening the proper payment accounts. For now, my store only accepts PayPal.

I built the store as a headless Shopify website using AI tools. I already have some experience building software with AI, so I connected the website to Shopify’s APIs, created the product pages, purchased a domain, and launched the store. Almost everything was created with AI, without traditional manual coding.

The next challenge was advertising. Since I am operating outside my target countries, setting up the ad accounts was more complicated than expected. I had a VPS that was operating in the US, so I used it to create a proper US TikTok ad account.

My initial campaign had two ad sets with a budget of $35 each. However, I made a mistake with the optimization event. The ad sets were not initially optimized for Add to Cart, so I created two new ad sets and corrected the setup.

The new structure is:

• One ad set using interests and behaviors related to my niche.
• One broad-targeting ad set.
• Both optimized for Add to Cart.

Day 1 results

• Ad spend: approximately $62–65
• Impressions: 28,152
• Link clicks: 252
• CPC: $0.25
• CTR: 0.90%
• Store sessions shown: 15
• Sales: 0
• Revenue: $0
• Profit: -$62 to -$65

The session number is also not completely accurate because I was testing the store myself. Around six to eight of the first visits were probably from my own testing.

I know one day is not enough to judge the entire store, but I would really appreciate honest feedback.

Does anything immediately look wrong with the numbers, campaign structure, targeting, website tracking, or payment setup? What would you check or improve before spending more money on day two?

There are hundreds of paid themes and the reviews don't tell you much. If you've used a paid theme long term, which one would you buy again?

What made it worth it for you? Speed, design flexibility, support, built-in features? And is there anything you still had to fix with apps or custom code?

Im willing to begin drop shipping, although ive been struggling to find a niche, if i was to find one, how would I cppe with the long delivery times, aiming to sell on ebay

I currently have been scaling up my active listings, it takes a lot of time and effort to make all the nice pictures in Canva or use AI to make photos and nice descriptions and photos.

I went from 300-400 to 1.4k in a week now using ListForge chrome extension, is there any better alternatives?

Hello all, I’m an upcoming CS student on holiday looking to build a few side projects, and I recently came across the changes around VAT and cross-border selling in the EU.

For those dropshipping into the EU or UK, how do you normally calculate your actual margin before deciding on a selling price?

Especially when comparing direct shipping with DDP against using an EU warehouse, while accounting for VAT, shipping, fulfilment fees and all the random extra charges.

Do you usually use Excel or Google Sheets, rely on quotes from your supplier or 3PL, or use some other tool?

Just curious because it seems quite easy to think a product has a healthy margin, then realise later that a few cross-border fees were missed.

HAVE A GOOD DAY ALL!!

I've been doing ebay dropshipping for the clients mostly UK,USA and Germany first couple of months it was giving me a great sale.

But I'm stuck at 150 pound per day and the ROI is also not good 28 27%

And AliExpress suppliers also take to much time to deliver the products and the returns

Give me some advice to scale the stores and a supplier just like AliExpress but local

Welcome to the Weekly Q&A & Store Critique Thread

Welcome to r/dropship's weekly discussion thread!

Whether you're just getting started with dropshipping, looking for guidance on your next steps, or want feedback on your store, this is the place to ask questions and share your work.

What This Thread Is For

• Beginner questions
• General dropshipping advice
• Store reviews and critiques
• Quick questions that don't require a separate post

Comment Requirements

To participate, your account must:

• Be at least 24 hours old
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We're glad you're here. Ask away, help others, and keep the discussion constructive!

Alright, I need to ask this before I lose my remaining brain cells to another YouTube thumbnail of a guy pointing at Shopify revenue.

I’ve been trying to get into dropshipping for a few months now, and honestly, the hardest part has not even been building the store, setting up ads, or figuring out suppliers.

TL;DR:
I’ve spent 3 months trying to learn dropshipping, but most “winning product” advice seems to lead to a course, a recycled AliExpress item, or a product already destroyed by 40,000 beginners. Before I worry about suppliers, I want to understand how real dropshippers actually find products worth testing: where they search, how they judge demand, how they spot saturation, and how they decide something is worth spending ad money on. I have around $500/month to test seriously, I’m ready to fail and learn, but I’d rather not donate money to Meta because my product research strategy was basically “watch guru, scroll AliExpress, pray.”

It is this one stupidly simple question:
How do you actually find a good product to test?
Because every time I search for help, I end up in the same circus.

One guy says, “I found this untapped winning product nobody knows about,” and then shows a product that has been on TikTok since the Roman Empire.

Another guy says, “This product made me $300k in 30 days,” then casually forgets to mention profit, ad spend, refunds, shipping times, chargebacks, or the fact that his real business model is selling me a course.

Then there are the “copy this exact store” people, which sounds great until you realise 40,000 other confused beginners watched the same video and are now selling the same dog water bottle with a slightly different font.

I’ve spent time on AliExpress, CJ Dropshipping, TikTok Creative Center, Amazon best sellers, Etsy, random spy tools, Google Trends, and honestly at some point it starts feeling less like product research and more like online gambling with extra tabs open.

I am not looking for someone to hand me their niche or product. I know nobody serious is going to say, “Here bro, take the product that pays my rent.” Fair enough.

What I am trying to understand is the actual thinking process.

For people here who are genuinely running stores or testing products properly:
- Where do you usually start product research?

- Do you look at TikTok trends, Amazon demand, problem-solving products, niche communities, Meta ads, spy tools, offline trends, Reddit complaints, or something else?

- How do you decide whether a product is worth testing or just another shiny piece of garbage with good angles?

- What signs tell you a product is too saturated?

- What signs tell you there is still room to enter?

- Do you think beginners should start with trending products, problem-solving products, branded niche stores, or something more evergreen?

- How much research do you do before spending money on ads?

- And what are the biggest product research mistakes beginners make?

For context, I am not trying to build a cheap one-product store with a fake countdown timer and “Jessica from Manchester just bought this” popping up every 11 seconds.

I actually want to build something brandable: proper domain, clean store, good positioning, decent creatives, good copy, and a product that at least has some real reason to exist.

Budget-wise, I can put around $500/month into this at the start. Enough to test, learn, mess up a little, and not cry into instant noodles immediately.

I am fully okay with failing a few tests. I just do not want to fail because my entire product research strategy is basically:

- Watch guru video

- Search AliExpress

- Convince myself a random product is “untapped”

So yeah, before I even worry too much about suppliers, shipping, private agents, and all that, I want to understand the product side properly.

How do you actually find products worth testing?
Roast me if needed. At this point, I probably deserve it for calling three months of scrolling “research.”

Running a small wholesale operation out of Canada (home fragrance / aromatherapy, think reed diffusers, that kind of thing), targeting spas, boutiques, that general vertical. DDP shipping sorted, pricing sorted, product's good. The part I can't crack is actually getting in front of buyers.

Cold email works a little but it's slow. The big US distributor networks (the kind spas usually order from) aren't Canadian and I don't want to deal with cross-border customs on top of everything else. RangeMe's free tier gets basically zero visibility, and paying to bid feels backwards when I haven't even proven the channel works yet.

Anyone doing Canadian-specific B2B dropshipping/wholesale who's actually cracked the "how do buyers find you" problem? Genuinely stuck on this one. Would take literally any lead, even ones I've probably already tried.

Edit: I'm an idiot! I forgot to say what I've tried already! Ok currently have email campaigns running through Zoho, product photos look dope, started a Youtube channel for marketing purposes, and have a store opening for purchasing. The store is a Canada specific site but it feels like a very new marketplace so buyers aren't automatically going there. It would be very similar to a Shopify page except it's free instead of me worrying about monthly fees while I figure out marketing. It has been about a month since I started and I just don't know if this is a good start or not. Open rates are decent on the emails, videos on Youtube are getting better.... but I feel very green at this.

I’ve been using CJ Dropshipping for one of my products and it’s been getting pretty consistent sales lately, usually around 8-12 orders/day. It’s a pet-related product, so customers tend to care a lot about shipping updates and they message pretty quickly if tracking looks weird.

The actual fulfillment has been okay some days and annoying on others, but the bigger problem for me is the communication and support. It feels like every time there’s an issue, getting a clear answer takes way too long. Sometimes I have to follow up multiple times just to understand what’s going on with an order or a supplier.

I don’t mind paying a bit more per order if it means I can get faster replies, cleaner communication, and fewer random problems to deal with every week.

For anyone who started with CJ Dropshipping and moved somewhere better, what did you switch to?

Did you go with a private agent, fulfillment center, or something else?

This isn't a motivational post, but something from the heart to people who are genuinely building logically.

Is it a dropshipping store? Yes... Why is there a BIG figure with little orders stat? It is a High-ticket store, a store that focuses on car parts and fancy things to upgrade cars.

I have it, not once, not twice, but countless times that "product" isn't the issue of dropshippers, the fact that it is being produced here and there means people are still buying or someone is still creating reasons for people to buy.

You CANNOT skip or ESCAPE branding. What exactly does your "brand" represent? Without the products, who are you?.... I often use Balenciaga as an illustration, they sell almost dumb things to people "polythene bag, luxury towell skirt, etc" for nothing less than 900 euros at launch.

How to do branding?

1. Prelaunch marketing: You don't necessarily need to wait till your site is ready before you push it out. Are you familiar with how local businesses advertise their business before you even see the products? They set up events, ambassadorship, partnership etc. These strategies apply to dropshipping
2. Fan page: I think this is self-explanatory. Create codes to celebrate the launch, let people know that your first set of customers will always be your VIPs.
3. Leverage on several sales channels: Pinterest shop, tiktok shop, google shop, Fb & IG shop. They'll save you a lot of money in the future.
4. Build on On-site SEO; Give Google/search engines crawler access to your website so they can read data and optimize how your content is shown to people on SERPs (search engine result pages). The access also lets google make quality recommendations for growth and improvement.
5. Automated workflow: Setup series of traffic retainers to capture leads and monitor subscribers actions so you can always remind them of their abandoned actions automatically. I strongly do not recommend any POP-UPS, embed your forms in your product pages if you can

There are many more options to talk about, and one post wouldn't answer everything. Just know one thing, MORE traffic wouldn't solve anything, only RELEVANCE will.

If you've already built and you think you got so many things wrong, or if you have questions related to your challenges, I'll be happy to answer in the comments.

NOTE: I DO NOT SELL COURSES. I pray we all win!

Something I've noticed over the years is that a lot of successful stores seem to go through the same shift.

Early on, it's all about finding winning products and getting sales.

Then at some point the conversation changes to things like customer experience, repeat purchases, packaging, support, and building trust.

For those who've been doing this for a while, was there a moment when your mindset changed?

Or do you think product testing is still the biggest priority?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for honest feedback on my Meta ad campaign because I’m not getting any sales.

Here are my results:

• 0 sales
• Around 80 website sessions
• About $7 in ad spend so far
• Selling in Canada, UK, and Australia
• Shopify store - https://blentio.com/products/breezeglow%E2%84%A2-4-blade-smart-ceiling-fan-light?variant=48208605511892

Meta ads are attached

please give me suggestions on whatever u think is wrong