Shopify Dropshipping: A Comprehensive 9-Step Guide for 2024
Shopify dropshipping offers a low-risk solution for starting an online store without the hassle of managing inventory.
In this article, we’ll show you how to start dropshipping on Shopify, covering market research, store setup, and leveraging services like Printify to launch your business successfully in 2024.
If you’re looking to simplify your entry into eCommerce, this comprehensive guide provides the answers you need.
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links, which means we may earn a commission if you make a purchase through those links. This comes at no additional cost to you.
Key Takeaways
- Dropshipping sellers don’t hold inventory but source products from dropshipping suppliers that also handle store order fulfillment.
- To be successful, you’ll need to find your customer niche and reliable suppliers.
- Use Printify to create custom products for free, list them on your store, and start selling worldwide with no order minimums.
- Drive organic traffic to your dropshipping store with high-quality content and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
- Consider promoting your dropshipping products and content through email marketing campaigns, social media, influencer partnerships, and paid ads.
What Is Shopify Dropshipping?
It’s running a dropshipping business on one of the most popular eCommerce platforms in the industry, selling products online for a profit without having to manage inventory yourself.
You’ll partner with a third-party dropshipping supplier, who will stock, produce, and ship orders to your customers.
How to use Shopify for dropshipping?
- Open an eCommerce store on the platform.
- Choose a market niche and find trending products to sell.
- Select a dropshipping supplier to fulfill your orders.
- List products on your dropshipping store.
- Promote your new store to attract customers and increase sales.
Why Dropship on Shopify?
Shopify powers more than four million websites, and 12.3% of Shopify stores list at least one product that’s fulfilled with the dropshipping model.
This popular eCommerce platform presents clear advantages for independent sellers and entrepreneurs wanting to start a dropshipping business:
- Low Initial Investment
Shopify offers a variety of pricing plans, allowing you to choose the best option for your budget and dropshipping business needs.
- Easy Website Customization
Shopify’s intuitive editing tools and free themes make it easy to create a professional website without coding skills.
- Apps for Everything
With only a few clicks, add Printify or other dropshipping apps to your eCommerce website, along with apps for marketing, SEO, or anything else.
- No Need for Stock
Simply install a dropshipping app, add products to your store, and start selling. Your dropshipping supplier will take care of the supply chain.
- Global Coverage
Shopify enables you to reach customers worldwide with support for multiple languages, currencies, payment options, and shipping services.
Create an Account With Printify and Start Dropshipping Today
9-Step Guide for Starting a Dropshipping Business on Shopify
Step 1 - Calculate Upfront Costs
Many entrepreneurs are enticed by the promise of an easy start to a profitable dropshipping business, only to be later caught off guard by the costs of subscription plans, apps, and other services.
Although dropshipping is a cost-effective and profitable business model, you’ll need to account for at least some initial expenses.
Pro Tip
Start a free trial on Shopify and follow our guide to learn the basics of how to sell on Shopify.
Here are some possible expenses to keep in mind:
Your Subscription Plan
Shopify is free for three days when you sign up for a trial. Then, you’ll be charged $1 for your first month, and the following costs will depend on your chosen pricing plan.
| Plan | Pricing (Monthly) | Pricing (Annual – 25% off) | Transaction Fees |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $5/month | - | 5% plus $0.30 with Shopify Payments |
| Basic | $39/month | $29/month | 2.9% plus $0.30 with Shopify Payments |
| Retail | $89/month | $79/month | 2.9% plus $0.30 with Shopify Payments |
| Starter Plan | |
|---|---|
| Pricing (Monthly) | $5/month |
| Pricing (Annual – 25% off) | - |
| Transaction Fees | 5% plus $0.30 with Shopify Payments |
| Basic Plan | |
| Pricing (Monthly) | $39/month |
| Pricing (Annual – 25% off) | $29/month |
| Transaction Fees | 2.9% plus $0.30 with Shopify Payments |
| Retail Plan | |
| Pricing (Monthly) | $89/month |
| Pricing (Annual – 25% off) | $79/month |
| Transaction Fees | 2.9% plus $0.30 with Shopify Payments |
Pro Tip
Check out our comparison of all Shopify pricing plans to find the best option for your dropshipping store.
Your Domain Name
All Shopify plans offer a free subdomain with your store name plus ‘.myshopify.com‘.
However, if you want your own custom store URL, you’ll need to spend some money.
You can buy a domain name directly on Shopify or go with NameCheap for a ‘.com‘ domain for $5.98/year if you’re a new customer.
Ordering Product Samples
It’s important to set some money aside for checking the quality of your dropshipping suppliers and products before you start selling online.
Browse through our Product Catalog to find over 900 customizable products. Place sample orders with your designs and take advantage of no-order minimums to order as few or as many products as you need.
Marketing and Advertising
Since a consistent marketing budget depends on how much revenue you can afford to invest in your shop, it’s best to start with tested strategies that offer the highest return on investment.
While SEO and content marketing can improve your search engine rankings and drive organic traffic for free, consider using paid advertising with Google Ads or social media platforms to boost your store’s visibility quickly.
Step 2 - Target a Niche
Before launching a store, you’ll need to conduct market research to evaluate the viability of your retail strategy. This will help segment the potential market and analyze consumer behavior to align your store’s name, domain, and designs to marketable trends.
Base your dropshipping business idea around a niche subject or theme that interests you, like jewelry inspired by mythology or thematic specialty coffee beans with unique flavor profiles.
Determine your ideal target audience and discover consumer trends by analyzing a potential niche through various research methods:
Social Media Networks
Using social media as a research channel can be a way to discover a potential target audience and determine the marketing channels that users frequent most often.
Join relevant communities, interact with current trends, consider what users are most excited about, and discover the primary concerns when purchasing.
Keyword Research Tools
When looking for keywords to use for your business name, product titles, descriptions, and content, use online analytics tools like Semrush or Google Trends.
These tools offer great resources for researching a niche and analyzing how online users interact based on keyword search volume, trends, competition, regional traffic, and related search terms.
Evaluate the scope of your potential target audience, align your content with customer search intent, and find subjects related to your niche and competition.
Reviews and Focus Groups
Initially, you might not have the resources to conduct anonymous focus group interviews, but it’s still valuable to seek a second opinion from merchants and customers.
Start with family and friends, shared community members, and find advice in dropshipping communities like the Printify POD Rockstars Facebook group.
Turn to your competitors and pay attention to customer reviews to identify pain points and unmet needs that your products could address.
Additional Printify resources: Learn more about picking a niche and finding relevant products.
Step 3 - Decide What Products to Sell
Although you can get sales from adding any best-selling products to your dropshipping store, it’s best to research your target audience’s specific interests and needs.
Turn to social media platforms, forums, and communities for ideas, and look at what your future customers are discussing, recommending, or trying to find.
Analyze competitor stores to see what products generate the most sales and if anything is missing from their offer.
Be sure to choose products that align with your audience and your brand. This will help you create a compelling product lineup that drives sales and fosters customer loyalty.
Step 4 - Find a Dropshipping Supplier
Start with a quick search online or go to the Shopify App Store, which is full of quality dropshipping apps for you to consider.
When selecting a supplier, make sure they offer all the products and services you need and check reviews left by other successful dropshipping stores.
Check out the top eCommerce dropshipping suppliers and partner with multiple ones to diversify your product range and offer better prices to your customers.
If you want to sell products with your own custom designs, go for a print-on-demand dropshipping app like Printify.
Open Your Dropshipping Store Today With Printify
Step 5 - Pick a Name and Domain for Your Shopify Dropshipping Store
Ideally, a business name is simple, memorable, and easily brandable.
Shopify offers a free sub-domain, but a tailored one will improve SEO and help market your dropshipping store. Besides, having your own store domain looks more professional.
It’s a good idea to look at other successful Shopify stores for inspiration. Pay attention to the simplicity and brand-ability of their names and how their domains align with their brand identity.
Use Shopify’s free domain name generator to get a unique name and check if the associated domain is available.
It’s possible to purchase a domain name directly on Shopify, but you can also use domain registrars like Namecheap.
Step 6 - Create a Shopify Account
Initial Setup
Go to Shopify and click Start free trial to create an account. Answer a few questions to customize your experience, select your country, and set up two-step authentication for added security.
Adjust Shopify Account Settings
Once in your Shopify Admin panel, navigate to Settings in the bottom-left corner to add a store name, phone, email, and billing information.
Additionally, fill out other important details in your store settings to guarantee everything runs smoothly upon launch:
- Payments
Activate Shopify Payments, select Shopify-approved payment providers, or add manual payment methods. Additionally, choose a payment capture method.
- Markets
Add all the regions and countries where you plan to sell, adjusting language, currency, product, tax, and shipping settings.
- Shipping and Delivery
Click on General profile to adjust domestic and international shipping rates for each shipping method or create custom shipping profiles for different product categories.
If you use Printify, check our advice on how to set up shipping for your Shopify store.
- Taxes and Duties
Adjust settings for each shipping zone where you plan to collect taxes.
Follow our guide on understanding sales tax and ensure compliance with local regulations to avoid legal issues.
- Policies
Take a look at our guide on how to set your store policies and add them to your store’s settings. Store policies can be linked in the footer of your checkout and online store menu.
Step 7 - Customize Your Shopify Store
Your Shopify website is the first impression you give to potential customers. With the immense competition from other eCommerce entrepreneurs, well-designed dropshipping websites have more chances of success.
From your Shopify Admin panel, navigate to Sales Channels → Online Store → Themes and choose a professional and attractive theme that aligns with your brand.
The platform offers a large selection of free and paid themes you can customize for every kind of dropshipping business idea, from Shopify clothing stores to pet supplies.
Add high-quality visuals, ensure your website is easy to navigate, and optimize for mobile devices to enhance the customer experience.
Many Shopify store owners begin with free themes and switch to a paid theme after they become established businesses.
Pro Tip
Go through the best Shopify store examples to see what other stores are doing right.
Design a Logo
A well-designed logo is a crucial part of your brand identity and can make your dropshipping store truly memorable and help establish a loyal customer base.
To create a memorable design, use a graphic design tool like Photoshop, its free alternatives, or try out Shopify’s free logo maker.
Step 8 - Create and List Products on Your Shopify Store
Go to your Shopify Admin panel → Products. Add or import products to your store and manage inventory and product collections from here.
If you integrate your Shopify store with Printify, it’s possible to create and publish products on your dropshipping store in just a few clicks directly from your Printify Dashboard.
Create Products With Printify
Use our Product Creator to quickly upload or create unique designs for a large selection of customizable products.
With access to free graphics, fonts, an AI Image Generator, and professional editing tools, you can craft designs that perfectly represent your brand.
Publish Products to Shopify
Select variants, edit product details, set retail pricing and shipping rates, and then click Publish to create a product listing in your store.
Edit titles, descriptions, mockup images, Shopify categories, and other item details for all Printify product listings in your Printify Dashboard → My products.
If you want additional information on how to create products and what products to sell on Shopify, be sure to check out these articles:
Use Collections
Shopify collections are an excellent way to group your products into categories. This simplifies store management, allowing you to easily edit products in bulk and even apply discounts to specific product categories.
It also helps customers navigate your store more quickly, offering an easy way to increase customer engagement.
Tip: The Shopify Starter plan doesn’t support this feature, so you would need to use Basic Shopify, Shopify, Advanced Shopify, or Shopify Plus pricing plans.
Go to the Shopify Admin panel → Products → Collections → Create collection.
There are two different types of collections you can add to your eCommerce store:
- Automated Collections
Choose up to 60 conditions (including product type, title, tags, and vendor) to sort products into collections.
This saves a lot of time as all new products that fit the specified conditions will automatically be added to a collection.
- Manual Collections
Additionally, create a collection by manually selecting specific products from your catalog.
This method is more time-consuming but useful if you have a small selection of products or want to hold special events like a flash sale.
Step 9 - Market Your Online Store and Sell Your Merch
Now that you’ve built your Shopify store, integrated it with Printify and other dropshipping suppliers, and filled it up with products, it’s time to launch it and start promoting.
Apply these marketing strategies to attract customers and boost sales for your dropshipping business:
Social Media Marketing
Create social media content and advertise your Shopify business on multiple social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Here are a few approaches to consider:
- Share High-Quality Content
Anything from images and videos of your products and customer testimonials to behind-the-scenes glimpses, blog articles, and industry news.
- Keep to a Schedule
Plan and schedule your posts ahead of time and stick to a regular posting plan to keep your audience interested.
- Use Hashtags
Add popular and relevant hashtags to increase the visibility of your posts. This will help you gain new followers for your social media profiles and generate more sales for your eCommerce business.
Pro Tip
Check out our guide on how to improve your social media strategy with TikTok hashtags.
- Engage and Reward Your Audience
Promptly respond to comments and messages, and consider running contests, giveaways, and exclusive promotions to generate excitement about your brand.
- Use Paid Advertising
Target specific customer demographics based on factors like age, location, interests, and online behavior to increase visibility and reach your potential customers.
- Collaborate With Influencers
Learn how to find social media influencers and set up partnerships to promote your products and Shopify dropshipping store to their followers.
Influencers can add credibility to your brand and help you reach a larger audience.
Email Marketing
With the global email user count set to reach $4.73 billion in 2026, Shopify email marketing offers an easy way to reach customers and increase sales.
Make sure to do the following:
Share links and add sign-up forms to your website, motivating visitors to subscribe to your content and updates.
- Send Regular Newsletters
Share information on new products, special offers, and discounts.
- Personalize Email Campaigns
Tailor your emails to different customer segments based on their interests, behavior, and past purchases.
- Automate Email Campaigns
Set up welcome messages, abandoned cart reminders, and order confirmations to motivate customer engagement.
Content Marketing and SEO
Drive organic traffic to your website and enhance your brand’s visibility on popular search engines like Google.
Follow these strategies to maximize your gains:
- Create High-Quality Content
Produce valuable and relevant content, like blog posts, articles, videos, and infographics, that address the needs and interests of your target audience.
- Use Relevant Keywords
Add them to your titles, headings, metadata, product descriptions, and throughout the body of your content.
- Increase Site Speed
Compress high-resolution images, limit the number of apps, turn off certain features in your theme that may slow down loading times, or switch to a Shopify 2.0 theme, which is already optimized for performance.
- Improve Site Navigation
Organize products into logical categories and subcategories, add a search bar, and use descriptive text with keywords for internal links and images.
Earn backlinks from reputable websites to increase your site’s authority and improve its search engine rankings.
Pro Tip
Check out more tips and ideas for improving your Shopify SEO.
Shopify Apps to Enhance Your Marketing
Shopify offers a growing selection of apps that fit online stores of all sizes and purposes.
If you’re looking to streamline your marketing efforts, here are some popular and free apps to consider:
Create engaging promotional videos, social media ads, and product showcases.
Run email campaigns, use templates to send automated emails, and gain access to detailed reports.
Add a customizable and AI-powered review widget to collect product reviews on your website.
Integrate a minimalistic Instagram feed into your store to showcase photos, videos, and Reels, and create shoppable Instagram feeds.
Connect your store to Google Merchant Center and YouTube to run targeted ads and display information on products, exclusive deals, and shipping.
Pro Tip
Go through our list of the best free Shopify apps and get the latest in marketing strategies from our blog.
Why Dropship With Shopify and Printify?
Opening a Shopify dropshipping store is an easy way to sell products without keeping stock.
Shopify offers a platform to create, customize, and manage your store, while Printify provides all the print-on-demand products and eCommerce services you need.
Why choose Printify among countless other Shopify dropshipping apps?
Hundreds of Dropshipping Products
Our growing Product Catalog offers over 900 custom products, from apparel and accessories to home goods and consumer products.
Simple Mockup Design Tools
Our Product Creator allows you to customize products with unique designs and generate high-quality mockups to add to your Shopify dropshipping store listings.
Easy Shopify Integration
The Printify Integration for Shopify lets you import products into your online store and ensures that orders are automatically processed and fulfilled.
Global Suppliers
Our network of vetted Print Providers allows you to find the right solutions for your Shopify dropshipping store with some of the lowest product and shipping costs.
24/7 Customer Support
Facing issues while setting up your Shopify dropshipping business? We have a dedicated Support Team and Help Center to answer all of your questions and concerns.
FAQ
How to set up dropshipping on Shopify?
Once you’ve signed up for the three-day trial, take some time to create an online store.
To start a dropshipping business, follow these steps:
- Choose a dropshipping app. Browse through the Shopify App Store to find a dropshipping app like Printify. Check that they’ll take care of managing inventory, order fulfillment, and shipping products to your customers.
- Set up the app. Install your chosen dropshipping app and follow the setup instructions to connect it to your Shopify store.
- Add products. Select trending products from various suppliers to add to your store inventory. Customize product titles, descriptions, and set retail prices.
- Launch your store. Once your product listings are ready, publish and market your dropshipping store.
How does Shopify dropshipping work?
You open a store on Shopify and list products but don’t hold stock. Instead, you connect a dropshipping supplier.
You earn money by selling products at a markup.
When a customer buys something from your store, the order goes directly to the supplier, who’ll be managing inventory, order fulfillment, and shipping products directly to your customers.
Is Shopify worth it for dropshipping?
It can be. Dropshipping with Shopify is a low-risk way to sell products. It’s one of the most popular eCommerce platforms available and offers an extensive catalog of dropshipping solutions with products at wholesale prices.
If you want to partner with a dropshipping supplier for free, choose Printify and start dropshipping on Shopify with Print on Demand right away.
What does Shopify charge for dropshipping?
Shopify doesn’t charge you for dropshipping, but you’ll need to pay for a subscription plan to access the platform and dropshipping apps.
Some dropshipping services, like Printify, are free to install and use. We’ll only charge you after an order is placed in your store to cover order fulfillment costs.
What’s more – there is no minimum order quantity.
How much do dropshippers make a month?
According to Shopify, you can make $2,000/month if you invest up to 15 hours/week. However, the exact amount will depend on multiple factors, like your niche, marketing efforts, and overall business strategy.
The more time and effort you put into your business, the higher your potential earnings and chances of joining the ranks of top Shopify dropshipping stores.
Conclusion – Dropship on Shopify With Printify
We offer a vast selection of Print-on-Demand products and seamless integrations with popular eCommerce platforms like Shopify.
Now that you’ve learned how to start a Shopify dropshipping store, you have the tools and knowledge to launch your own store with this business model and start dropshipping with Shopify.
If you want to sell custom products without using this sales channel, check out our list of the best Shopify alternatives.
How to Start a Dropshipping Business on Shopify? Try Printify!
Written by
Janis Lazda
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2 comments
Hello ,
I’m a canadien artist and il want to start m’y dropshoping product with my desings on mugs,candles. posters….ect Could Ido it from Canada ? Or is it just for People in the usa ? I starter to do m’y Web site on wix, .Is shopify a better way ?
Thank you.
Hi Isabelle,
Yes, you definitely can. Here is more information on taxes for Canada. In regards to which sales platform to use, it depends on your goals. This article might be helpful to decide: https://printify.com/blog/wix-vs-shopify/. Good luck! 😉