Despite things changing, dropshipping is still a great way to generate and boost your side income this 2025. Ultimately, this involves selling products online—high-ticket, profitable products. But what exactly are these products? How do you determine what’s profitable and what's not?
This is what I’ll be discussing in this article. Whether you’re new to dropshipping or looking to upgrade your store, I’ll share and break down proven strategies that we follow in Drop Ship Lifestyle. From price point to product niche, learn how to have the best chances of success with product selection.
5 Winning Strategies for a Profitable Product Selection
1. Choose High-Ticket Products (>$200)
For a profitable store, sell products that cost at least $200. In DSL, we aim for an average profit margin of 30%, with at least $60 profit for every sale you make. This price point makes it possible.
Think about it: you’ll be doing the same amount of work if you decide to sell low-ticket products, from building the store to marketing and everything. However, the profit you can potentially make from those is less than the profit from high-ticket products.
Selling $20 products and just making $6 profits isn’t really ideal—you need hundreds to thousands of sales to make huge profits. On the other hand, you will just need a few sales per day with high-ticket products.
Another related strategy is to keep your average order value (AOV) around $1000, especially if you’re an existing seller who wants to improve your business. What does this mean? Assuming the 30% profit margin, you can make $300 net profit in every $1000 sale you make. That’s $2100 profit in just a week!
The easiest way to do this is to sell standalone products that can sell for $1000 or more just by themselves. Examples? Standing desks, couches, rugs, etc. But you can also bundle products that cost less—just make sure they’ll cost $1000 when bought as a set.
2. Partner With 30+ Product Suppliers
The next strategy focuses on the number of suppliers to look for. Normally, I recommend finding at least 20 suppliers. But this 2025, I recommend finding at least 30 suppliers. This change is influenced by what I’ve discussed about the effects of Trump’s presidency on e-commerce as a whole.
It’s also due to several reasons, including this: you won’t become an authorized retailer from day 1. Not all brands in your niche are going to approve you right away. Some may ask you to come back after you’ve generated traffic or if you’ve reached a certain amount of revenue. Having 30+ options will give you a solid base.
Another major reason is that this 2025, I want you to aim to find domestic suppliers, those that have products that are actually made here in the USA. Remember, having a warehouse ready for distribution here in the USA doesn’t always mean that the products are made here as well—some of them are made in China.
And right now, Trump is talking about tariffs of 40% to 60%, which means that the products are going to be more expensive. You can avoid or minimize these if the country of origin of your products is the USA. By aiming for 30+ suppliers, you can get a good portion of suppliers with USA-made products.
On a side note, if you’re already dropshipping, don’t try to change anything. Just look for domestic suppliers within your niche and add them to your supplier list.
You can also check out my 10 Best Dropshipping Niches of 2025. I was actually able to determine niches with a high amount of domestic suppliers—you might want to consider them!
3. Avoid Brand Loyalty Niches
The third tip for a profitable selection is to avoid brand loyalty. Instead, go for niches where customers will care less about the name plastered on the products you’re selling.
One example of a brand loyalty niche is headphones. Its market is already filled with and dominated by big names, such as Sony, Bose, Apple, and even Microsoft. People will turn to these big brands when buying headphones—you don’t stand a chance.
Instead, go for niches and products without brand loyalty, like standing desks. I have one, and I don’t even know who made it. When I bought it, I just considered what I wanted: a bamboo one with a cutout in the middle that could support my three monitors. This is what no brand loyalty means, and it’s what you want to sell.
Avoiding brand loyalty also means you can easily drive traffic and pick up search volume. This makes it easy to get more suppliers and sell online.
4. Sell to the Upper Middle Class
This is all about your market demographics. You can break this down into three segments or groups: lower income, upper middle class, and wealthy. Focus on selling to the upper middle class.
Let’s say you want to sell sofas. It fits all the criteria above, costs $1000 or more with hundreds of suppliers, and has no brand loyalty. They can even appeal to the upper middle class. But keep in mind that there are different types of sofas, and some of them are inexpensive, like futons. These can cost $100 to $200 and mostly appeal to lower-income households.
The issue with selling to this group is that these people are often stretching their means to buy these items. You’ll likely have more customer service in your business and more returns, and the profit isn’t that great.
On the other end of the demographic spectrum, you have the wealthy. Considering the sofas again, they’ll likely opt for custom-made ones. Though you can sell these for a ton of money, this will require a more intensive service based on experience. More pre-sale and post-sale support. Plus, if they’re not satisfied with it, they can return it, so a higher return rate as well.
This is why you want to sell to the upper middle class—those with a combined household income of $150,000 or more. These people are more comfortable buying online, which means less support and less work.
5. Stay With Evergreen Niches
Many stores that I’ve built and helped build are still going strong today because I chose evergreen niches. These are niches that sell consistently, not just for a certain period of time. They’re the opposite of trends and seasonal niches.
Trends are products that can pop up today, but their demand will only last for a few months and then just die off. Meanwhile, seasonal products are those in demand only during specific seasons or holidays, like snowboards during winter. After winter, they will not sell anymore, which means you will have to wait for the next winter again just to make a sale and profit.
You want to avoid these niches and focus on more evergreen products. These are products that will continue to sell for years and even decades. That way, even if you make content the next month, it can still make traffic and drive sales in the future.
Make Smart Product Choices
That’s it! To summarize, you want to follow these product selection tips if you want a profitable business:
If you gained value from this article or if you have any questions, leave a comment below! You can also check out our webinars to take things to the next level.