8 High-Margin Products for Dropshipping

In this article, you will learn the 8 best high-margin products for dropshipping. We will also introduce niches that you can explore.

I realized over the years that on some occasions, it is better to sell one high-margin unit than to sell ten units of a product with a small profit. I will explain why this is so later.

In addition to the list of high-margin dropshipping products, you will also learn: 

• Definition of a high-margin product
• Calculation of profit margin
• Suppliers of high-margin dropshipping products
• How to use Dropship.IO to find high-margin dropshipping products

If you are ready, let us start! 

What is a High Margin Product?

A high-margin product gives you a lot of room for big profit. There is no definite unit of profit as a standard for a high-margin product, but you can use percentages to evaluate them, like 50%, 100%, etc. 

In the world of manufacturing, a high-margin product can be sold at a significant price compared to its capital cost of production. 

Here is an example: 

The ring costs $46 on Amazon. If you go to Alibaba, the cost of this ring is somewhere between $0.73 and $0.94. See below:

This, we can conclude, is a high-margin product. You are making more than $40 for something you paid for less than a dollar. 

As a dropshipper, it is better to sell high-margin products than general goods because of the following:

• You spend the same effort but make more money
• You spend the same amount of money on ads, but you get higher revenue
• You need to sell only one unit to make a big profit, not several 

For further guidance, here are some key characteristics of a high-margin dropshipping product: 

• The capital cost is significantly lower than the selling price (what the market can pay)
• There is a high demand for the product; this means that the customers are willing to pay extra money for it
• Low return or refund ratio; this has something to do with the product’s quality

A low-quality product is likely to either fade away or result in a lot of refund requests. In this case, you may have a high margin for profit, but it will never be sustainable.

List of 8 High-Margin Products for Dropshipping 

1. Sofa and Furniture

Furniture is one of the most profitable, high-profit margin dropshipping products because people are willing to spend money on them. Many are tired of IKEA-style furniture made of flimsy materials that do not last long.

Here are the pros of selling furniture:

• It is easy to find a market
• Lots of reliable suppliers
• You can markup at least 50% per product

The main challenge with furniture dropshipping is the shipping cost. They are huge, and they are a big liability, too. There is no getting around this problem, but what you can do is find suppliers who have global warehouses. This should reduce the shipping costs. 

You must tell your customers how your furniture is different, that it will last long, and it is not one of those things you can assemble or disassemble. Provide the customers quality, and they will be willing to pay for it.

2. Phone Accessories

People spend thousands of dollars on their phones, so it is only right that they buy something that will protect these devices. This is where you come in, and what you can offer them is a sturdy phone case. 

Specifically, you must sell phone cases or accessories with your designs (via print-on-demand). Do not sell the ones you find on AliExpress, as most of them are cheap and are readily available on Amazon. 

Here are the pros of selling phone cases: 

• Lots of suppliers to work with 
• You can ship globally, and the shipping cost is affordable
• You can create products that are uniquely yours

The two best platforms for print-on-demand are Printify and Printful. Both these platforms have several suppliers that offer phone cases and accessories. If you need inspiration, check out our blog about the best examples of print-on-demand stores.

3. Coffee Products

Yes, you can dropship coffee, and it can be a lucrative business for you. How can this be? You can get coffee beans from roasters directly for around $5 a pound and sell them for $16 or $20. 

Here are the pros of dropshipping coffee beans: 

• Lots of coffee aficionados out there
• Many coffee types to choose from
• You can sell add-ons like coffee makers and machines

I suggest that you work with either private-label or white-label coffee suppliers. These are coffee roasters who will roast a specific brew for you and pack your coffee products with your brand and design. 

It would be much harder to market your products at first, but then you can expect repeat customers if your product is better than what is out in the market. What’s going to happen is that your sales volume will keep on rising, and you’ll get more and more repeat customers.

4. Fitness Equipment

Though most people opt for cheap fitness equipment, they will soon realize that they were scammed because these products are unstable, unreliable, and therefore risky to use. 

Your position here as a dropshipper is to sell expensive gym equipment with a guarantee that your products are sturdy and reliable. 

Here is a list of some high-profit margin gym equipment you can dropship: 

• Ellipticals
• Treadmills
• Barbell sets (with seat and bars)
• Strength training machines

If you want to penetrate this niche, forget about dumbbells, plates, or pull-up bars. Most of these are low barrier-to-entry products, and they do not give you enough room for profit. 

Instead, focus on big gym equipment. Sure, the shipping cost is hefty, but if you only sell high-quality equipment, your customers will think it is worth it. 

Your ad copy, or product description, will be a big factor in your success. Make sure that you point out why your product is superior to your competitors’ products. If you need help with this, you can read our blog: How to Write Product Descriptions That Sell (with Examples). 

5. Food Supplements

Food supplements are a bit risky to dropship internationally. Even so, it should not stop you from selling them to countries that are receptive to these types of products.

Here are some examples of what you can sell: 

• Milk or a drink that has protein and creatine
• Body building food supplement (think of calcium and amino acids)
• Vitamins and minerals
• Vegetable extracts 

Avoid selling products that contain any kind of hormone, like testosterone. Do not sell injectables like steroids. 

Food supplements are high-profit margin dropshipping products because they are so cheap to manufacture, yet you can sell them five to ten times their worth if you package your products and brand them the right way.

If this is the niche you want, you can read our blog: Supplement Dropshipping: Top 5 Suppliers & Everything You Need To Know. That article will help you understand how to dropship food supplements, where to find suppliers, and what supplements are safe to dropship.

6. Wristwatch (non-branded) 

Branded wristwatches are a no-go for dropshipping (unless you know this industry very well). Instead of selling branded luxury watches, you can opt for creating your brand. 

There are many watches under $20 on AliExpress, and you can sell them for $40 to $50, giving you at least $100% profit margin.

Here are the pros of dropshipping watches: 

• They remain, until today, as status symbols
• You can customize them and do private-label or white-label dropshipping
• Many suppliers offer engraving services

The watch market is growing, and there is a huge demand for these products. If you want to learn more about this niche, read our blog post: Dropshipping Watches - Suppliers, Products Ideas, & Risks.

7. Kitchen Products

Many dropshippers focus their effort on cheap, manually operated kitchen gadgets. Their profit would be about $5 to $10 for each unit sold. You can do better than this if you sell high-margin kitchen dropshipping products. 

Here are the pros of selling kitchen gadgets (the expensive ones):

• People are tired of cheap knockoffs that stop working after a few uses
• They are not that bulky, so the shipment cost is affordable
• Lots of suppliers in different databases like AppScenic

It would be great if you knew your way around the kitchen. This way, you can understand the pain points of people who cook and find products that will solve these problems. 

In addition, you should be able to create more meaningful product copy if you understand how these machines work. For example, it is not enough to say that it is 1,000 watts. Instead, you can say that this machine is so powerful that it can crush nuts like they were nothing. 

8. Toys and Collectibles for Teens and Up

Parents know that children get tired of their new toy easily. It is why they won’t spend so much on them. Teens and adults, however, consider toys as hobbies, and this is how you can sell high-margin dropshipping products to them.

Here are some tips when selling toys:

• Focus on high-end, high-quality toys that the user has to build
• Add products that support the main one, like paint, brush, etc. 
• Your store must be a sub-niche, not a general toy store.

The last bullet point means that you have to concentrate on only one type of toy. If you want to dropship drones, then you must only have drones. Do not add puzzles or build blocks in there. 

Why? Because people are more likely to spend their money if your store is specialized. It tells them that you are an “expert” and that your store caters to only one specific market. This will make you look more credible and trustworthy. 

How to Calculate Profit Margin

There are several types of profit margins, but the most important one right now is the “gross profit margin.” 

By definition, the gross profit margin refers to the amount of money you still have left after paying for the capital cost of the product. In the manufacturing business, the cost of the product is called COGS, or the cost of goods sold. 

The formula is: Revenue – COGS = gross profit margin. If you want to view the gross profit margin in percentage, here is the formula: (Revenue – COGS = gross profit margin) / Total Revenue * 100. 

Let's say that you bought a dropshipping product for $1, and you sold it for $10. Your gross margin is $9 ($10 - $1 = $9).

If you sold two items, here is the math:

• Revenue = $20 (2 items x $10 each)
• COGS = $2 ($1 each item x 2 = $$2)

Your gross profit margin, in percentage, is:

• ($20 – $2) / $20 * 100
• $18 / 20 = 0.9
• 0.9 * 100 =90%

Overall, your gross profit margin is 90%, which is really high. Generally speaking, a profit margin of $20% is acceptable. 50% if considered good, and anything higher than that is really high. 

A high percentage of profit margin indicates that you have a lot of money to spend on your operating expenses. In our example, you still have $18 left, which you can use to pay for your Shopify store, your ads, or employee salary—and we are only talking about 2 items sold!

Where to Find High-Margin Products

You can find high-margin products on the following sites:

• AliExpress
• AppScenic
• Dropified
• Printify or Printful

Let us discuss each of these. 

1. AliExpress

Wait, AliExpress is where you get cheap products, right? Well, you will only find cheap products in AliExpress if that is what you are looking for. 

What this means is that if you want to sell expensive items, you can certainly find good and reliable products here, too. Besides, a high-profit margin dropshipping product does not mean you have to buy them at expensive prices. 

Since AliExpress does not integrate with Shopify directly, I suggest that you check out CJDropshipping, a dropship supplier database that allows you to source products from AliExpress. 

2. AppScenic

AppScenic is one of the biggest supplier database platforms for dropshipping. They have a special section where you can find what they call “premium” products, which you can sell for a higher markup than the ordinary or regular ones. 

Here are some key benefits of using AppScenic:

• They have vetted suppliers
• You can use multiple AI tools in their system to streamline your processes
• Integrates with multiple platforms
• They ship globally
• Store automation is possible

As far as high-margin products go, you can access the premium catalog if you are on a paid subscription. This catalog is where you will find low-priced, high-quality goods that you can sell for a big profit. 

If anything, my only gripe with AppScenic is that their free account is pretty much unusable. You cannot import products to your store if you are on the free subscription. 

3. Dropified

Dropified is a full-fledged dropshipping platform where you can do the following things:

• Build your store
• Look for products and suppliers
• Import products
• Automate the whole process

One big difference between Dropified and other platforms is that Dropified allows you to source products from eBay. To make this work, you will integrate eBay with your Dropified account. 

From here, you can display products that come from eBay to your store. The system also allows you to add products from AliExpress and Alibaba. 

4. Printify or Printful

My last recommendation for high-margin dropshipping products is either Printify or Printful. Both of them are print-on-demand platforms where you get blank products, design them, and sell them.

Here are the benefits of using these platforms;

• Upload the design in the system; no need to have a separate design tool
• They integrate with major online store platforms
• Both of them are free  to use

Now, this strategy will work for high-margin products if you create a brand. You cannot just design a shirt and sell it for $99 for a capital of $15. You can only convert these products or market them as high-end if you have a reputation. 

The only way to do this is to build your social media channel, like YouTube, and be a brand yourself. For example, you can start a YouTube channel, with or without your face, and wait until your show becomes popular. Once you have a lot of fans, you can sell them your merch at a premium price. 

Advantages of High Margin Dropshipping Products

The only benefit of high-margin dropshipping products is higher profit. But then, if you dig deeper, you will begin to understand why it is better to sell these things than high-volume, low-margin products.

Same Advertising Cost, Higher Profit

There is no difference in the cost of advertising a sofa and a fidget spinner. In the eyes of Facebook or Google, an ad is an ad. 

So, if you budget $10 per day for a sofa product and a fidget spinner, you will get more money for selling one couch than selling one fidget spinner.

Let us say that you spent $50 in five days and only made one sofa sale, but your profit is $50. On the other hand, you spent $50 in five days and sold one fidget spinner, and your product is only $1. 

This difference is huge, yet you spent the same amount of money on your ads. The only challenge here is that you will have to reach more people before you can sell a sofa than you would with a fidget spinner. 

Same Effort, Higher Profit

It takes a similar amount of effort to find winning products that have a high margin and a low margin. What this means is that you are spending the same amount of time and energy on two product types. Yet, the high-profit margin will give you more money.  

Here are some more effort-related activities that are similar between the two: 

• Writing a product description that sells
• Importing products from the supplier side to your Shopify store
• Creating ad copy 
• Creating the ad itself inside Facebook Business Manager or Google Ads 

Between high-margin and low-margin products, the big difference will come in the creation of the ad video itself. For example, it would be more expensive to create a video ad for a sofa than for a fidget spinner. 

The good news is that many suppliers will already provide you with a video ad. If you go to AliExpress, you will find some suppliers who use video in their product posts, like this one: 

If this is your supplier, then there is no need to create a video of your own. You do not even have to buy multiple products to produce ads.

Low Sales Volume, Higher Profit

Mathematically, you will earn more money from a single sale of a high-profit margin product than a low-profit one. 

• Let us say that the capital cost of a sofa is $50, and you sold it for $99
• Your gross profit is $49

If you sell a fidget spinner with a profit of $5 each, you need to sell at least 10 units to match your profit from the sofa. 

Think of the ten units—these are likely sold to ten different customers. You would have to deal with each one’s issues, including the likelihood of processing refunds, telling them how soon their orders will arrive, etc. 

With the sofa, you only made one sale but with a big profit, and you only have to deal with one customer. Less headache for you, and more time to manage your business.

High Margin Products to Avoid

Here are the top five high-margin products you must avoid dropshipping. 

• Counterfeit Items
• Fragile Goods
• Branded Wristwatches
• Medicine and Drugs
• Seasonal Products

Let me discuss why these are bad for you as a dropshipper.

1. Counterfeit Items

Many people in the world do not mind buying counterfeit items. Some of these items are so close to the original that one could not tell the difference. Items of this quality are called Class A. 

The most counterfeited items are:

• Shoes
• Bags
• Watches

It is illegal to sell these items, and you will have more problems than profit. It is also possible that doing this could land you in jail. 

In case you want to sell the original one, make sure you only work with a trusted and licensed distributor. Do your due diligence because there are sellers who either post as licensed distributors or original equipment manufacturers.

2. Fragile Goods

Do not sell items that are made of the following:

• Glass 
• Ceramic
• Pottery
• Preserved leaves, plants, etc.
• Chalk (expensive ones from Japan)
• Bowls and plates
• China

You can make money from these, especially the rare and artistic ones, but keep in mind that it is not you who pack these items for shipping. Chances are, if they break, you will not even get a refund from your supplier. 

3. Branded Wristwatches

I am not saying that you should not sell wristwatches. However, I strongly advise you not to sell branded ones unless you know this industry very well.  

Wristwatches, along with jewelry, are risky dropshipping products if they are branded. Here are a few reasons: 

• You run the risk of selling fake items
• Customers may scam you
• They can be stolen in transit

There are better ways to sell these things, and we have a detailed blog post that will show you how to dropship wristwatches. 

4. Medicine and Drugs

It is fine to sell food supplements and vitamins, including bodybuilding stuff like creatine and protein. What’s not a good idea is selling medicine.

You have to be a licensed pharmaceutical company or distributor to do this. There are many products online that purport to be able to “heal” specific kinds of diseases, but you need to know that these are scams. 

Besides, it is wrong to pray on the desperation of other people. So, you can sell vitamins and food supplements, but not medicines. 

5. Seasonal Products

Finally, do not sell seasonal products. While many of these are high-profit margin dropshipping products, you will never make a sale after the season.

What you can do is merely add these products to your already existing store or niche, just so you can keep up with the trends. However, it is not a good idea to focus your whole store or business on seasonal goods, no matter how high a profit margin they are. 

How to Use Dropship.IO to Find High-Margin Dropshipping Products

After signing up for your 7-day free trial, head on to the PRODUCT DATABASE (on the left) and type a product keyword in the search box. 

The search results are not arranged, so feel free to use the different columns to filter them based on your preference. From here, the products will be sorted from the highest to the lowest revenue. 

The next step is to click on the AliExpress icon. This should open a page of AliExpress where you can find similar products. 

The next step is to see how much these products sell on Amazon. The reason we are doing this is that we want a guarantee that these items are within the reach of customers, that there is a demand at a price that will give us the best profit.

The capital cost of the Power Reclining Sofa is $778. Now, let us check something similar on Amazon: 

As you can see, a single sofa costs $3,380. The one on AliExpress is only $778, and yet it is a couch that can seat three people.

Upon further research, I found out that this single couch is branded, which is why it is expensive. For similar unbranded products, the typical cost on Amazon is $899. 

As far as profit margin goes, we can calculate it this way:

• COGS = $778
• Our Selling Price = $850
• Gross Profit = $72
• Gross Profit Margin = 9.25%

In this case, our profit margin is not even close to 20%, so we should keep looking. To spare you the time, the product I found with a high margin is a computer table. 

You can buy it from AliExpress for $86, but you can sell it to US customers for $169. 

In this regard, your gross profit per sale is $83, and your gross profit margin is 96.51%. I tell you now that this is a high-margin product, and it would be a very ideal product to sell in your dropshipping store.  

Keep doing this process for your niche until you find a product where you get at least a 50% gross profit margin!

FAQ: High-Margin Products for Dropshipping

What products have the best profit margin for dropshipping?

Furniture, wristwatches, and jewelry are the best high-margin products for dropshipping. 

What is the most profitable dropshipping product?

Original art is profitable. However, you can also make a lot of money from health products, gym equipment, and furniture. 

Is a 40% profit margin too high?

No, 40% is not high. 50% and above is what we can consider high. 

What is the highest income for dropshipping?

There are dropshippers like Nawras Ganim who made around $20,000 from dropshipping.