You might be toying with the idea of finding some high-ticket dropshipping products to go to the next level, but are high-ticket dropshipping products worth it?
Many of us are thinking of building our dropshipping empire. You might wonder how to get your share of the incredible $791.70 billion spent in eCommerce stores in the US for 2020.
Let’s discover whether choosing those more expensive winning products is a theme to embrace or avoid. Here’s the short answer.
High-ticket dropshipping products are less competitive, usually have higher profit margins, and often a higher-order value. However online consumers are often reluctant to spend large sums without brand authority such as reviews and also have higher cart abandonment and refund requests.
Ok so with that in mind, let’s dive into a few more details. So we can better understand whether high-ticket dropshipping products are worth it, let’s start by finding out exactly what they are.
What are high-ticket dropshipping products?
It doesn’t take much understanding to work out high-ticket products that might be deemed ‘luxury’ or those with a higher price tag, usually $1000 or more. However, it’s not an exact science, and products selling for $200 could be defined as a high-ticket in dropshipping industry.
Historically the ‘pile ’em high, sell enough cheap’ was a dropshipping mantra. Small price returns of lots of products are more worthwhile than fewer high-value returns, right?
But the best high/ticket dropshipping products may just give you that competitive edge. So what exactly is a high-ticket dropshipping model?
“high-ticket dropshipping products are those that might be deemed ‘luxury’ or with a higher price tag, usually $200 or more”
More expensive items to sell in your store
High-ticket dropshipping is basically when you choose more expensive items in your store which are then fulfilled by a third-party supplier. You could hit the big time using that method, but the most important steps are finding a profitable niche and also the best reliable dropshipping supplier.
Ok, so with that in mind, what niches actually sit in these higher price brackets? Read on to discover more.
High-ticket dropshipping product categories
Here’s a few of our favorites and some examples to think about. Finding a suitable ‘niche’ is important if you want to sell the best high-ticket dropshipping products.
A ‘niche’ is a product within a category that is usually a smaller market segment.
- Home: Rugs, lightings, furniture, workstation
- Kitchen: Cookers, white goods, cooker hoods, coffee machines
- Watersports and other extreme sports: Kayaks, windsurfing and kite surfing boards and accessories, anchors, paddles, and life jackets
- Luxury Women’s wear: Luxury handbags, shoes, cashmere coats, fine jewelry, and watches
So that’s given you some idea of the kind of items that would fit nicely into the high-ticket item categories.
So it seems good to be true, right? Let’s first take a look at the advantages of high-ticket dropshipping products, before investigating some of the downsides.
Advantages of dropshipping high-ticket products
- Better profit margins: So every time you make a sale, there’s a happy dance! Higher ticket items obviously turn over more profit for your business.
- High average order value: Obviously if your products cost more, you stand to make more money in fewer orders than when selling smaller value items
- Better profit margin: for example selling a workstation costing $300 bring you a $90 profit margin, whereas a mug costing $12 will likely bring around $2 or $3.
- Less competitive: As the general dropshipping model is to sell lots of goods at the cheaper end of the market, you will find fewer dropshippers competing in your marketplace.
Ok, so that’s the good news. Read on to find out why it might not be the golden egg you thought it might be.
“You stand to make more money in fewer orders than when selling smaller value items”
The risk of dropshipping high-ticket products
- High abandon cart rate: Customers are far more reluctant to press the buy button on more expensive items as they will do far more ‘due diligence’ on high-ticket dropshipping products than a cheaper one. Cheaper items fill into the ‘impulse’ buy category which is one of the main benefits of standard dropshipping.
- More demanding on customer service: It first takes much to work out that customers paying large amounts of money will have far more quibbles if their service or shipping isn’t what they expected. A customer buying a kayak, for instance, will always have higher standards of what they expect as opposed to a $10 impulse purchase on a mug.
- High chance of return request: For all the reasons outlined above, consumers paying out large amounts of money will come back for more refunds. Even if they simply decided after buying that they couldn’t really afford the product
- Competing with large established companies: So there’s a reason why IKEA is the place to go if you need a new sofa. Customers often struggle to spend large amounts of money on high-ticket items that they can’t see, feel and touch, alongside the fact bigger companies have built up trust with years of retailing and have pages and pages of reviews.
So if you’ve read all the pros and cons of dropshipping more expensive goods and would like to expand your offering or nail a high-ticket niche, take a look at our hot tips below.
“Customers are far more reluctant to press the buy button on more expensive items”
Tips for selling high-ticket dropshipping
- Find a reliable supplier: If you want to enter the world of high-ticket items, it’s crucial to find a reliable agent. Choose a dropshipper with good reviews, a wealth of experience in the industry, and those which have longevity. Choosing the newest or cheapest supplier without researching fully could mean your dropshipping business fails.
- Choose fast shipping: As we mentioned earlier, your high-ticket customers will have much higher expectations and expect speedy shipping. They will certainly also expect their expensive item to arrive when predicted. Slow or unreliable shipping could mean lots of crucial time and money wasted dealing with unhappy customers.
- Provide good customer service: The crucial fast shipping required if you sell high-ticket products could mean a raft of complaints so it’s important to give good customer service. If you sell more exclusive products, your customers expect the level of service that comes with parting with larger sums of money. Make sure you get back to your customers in a timely manner and respond to all their queries as quickly as you can.
- Work on your SEO: Make sure your customers can see your product and website by spending time on SEO (search engine optimization). this could mean working on a blog content plan along with other forms of SEO. This way you are making sure your products are visible to your customers. Have an SEO expert take a look at your site and make sure it’s optimized for reaching as many of your target markets as possible.
And finally…
So there it is! The pros and cons of dropshipping high-ticket products so you can decide whether it’s worth it.
Make sure you’ve thoroughly researched your niche, choose a supplier who is reliable, and that your customers are going to see your website.
Alongside giving the fastest shipping and outstanding customer service you could see that high-ticket gamble paying off!