Don't Dropship Furniture - There's A Much Better Way

If you hear me say that, you might think,

“But hey John, hang on a minute. I see people—and businesses—that dropship furniture out there already. If they can do it, surely I can too.”

And that’s true.

There absolutely are websites and businesses where furniture is dropshipped.

In fact, one of the biggest online homewares retailers in the U.S., for example, is Wayfair.

Wayfair started as purely a dropshipping business and they sell all kinds of furniture for the home and office. Today they also sell a whole bunch of their own brands.

When I say don’t dropship furniture, I’m talking to somebody at the start of the journey—someone looking to start a high‑ticket dropshipping business (or any dropshipping business) today.

Just because businesses started 15 years ago—like Wayfair—dropshipping homewares and furniture, doesn’t mean you can start one today and expect anywhere near that success.

They started at a different time, in a different environment, in a different market. What was true then is not necessarily true now.

It’s not impossible to dropship furniture; it’s just really, really hard to make it successful at the moment.

The reality is there are literally hundreds—if not thousands—of other ideas, products, and niches you could dropship where you’ll have a much higher chance of success.

Saying not to dropship furniture may sound counterintuitive. People say, “But it’s a really big market, John. Everybody has furniture. Surely there’s space for me.”

And once again, that’s also true. Furniture (within the homewares category) is a super‑massive market—one of the biggest online segments.

There’s tons of money washing around in that segment, and it’s enticing to think you could grab a part of it.

But there are specific reasons it’s very difficult as a beginner.

First: competition. There’s a lot of competition in homewares. It’s one of the most competitive spaces out there.

I was looking at Google Shopping ads today for furniture—lounges, dining tables, dining chairs—and there were literally 50–60 websites selling exactly the same product, mostly at exactly the same price and with exactly the same offer (shipping, returns, etc.

It was hard to see why I should buy from any one of them.

Some of those websites have big budgets—they’re spending heavily on ads and doing a lot right with SEO to show up near the top.

As a new business entering that space, it’s very difficult to demonstrate differentiation (why someone should buy from you) in a market like that, and it can be very expensive to get your products in front of the right searches.

So the first strike is that it’s too competitive—and that’s not surprising. Big markets everyone knows about tend to be like this.

You see the same in other large markets: consumer electronics (whitegoods like washers, dryers, refrigerators) are very competitive—everybody needs them.

Baby products are also very competitive because everyone knows new parents buy a lot. Both are categories I’d say you should not dropship.

Secondly—and a lot of gurus won’t tell you this—there isn’t much effective branding in furniture.

There are tons of manufacturers and brands, but customers don’t search for most furniture by brand. Brand recognition is limited outside the very top end.

For the bulk of the market, customers search by colour, material, and size. Coupled with high competition, this makes it harder as a new business to get low‑cost, high‑conversion traffic early—the kind you need to get the ball rolling, make your first sales, and reinvest into marketing.

With furniture, you have to target broader, higher‑volume search terms, which often carry a much higher cost—hard to bear early on, especially against larger companies that hold stock and have bigger budgets.

So: high competition and weak brand searches make it hard.

Next, the cost of shipping relative to product price. Much of furniture is mid‑ to high‑ticket—$1,000–$3,000 is common—which isn’t bad, but many items are bulky and heavy, so shipping costs are high, particularly outside metro areas.

Why is that a problem? Early on, the price‑to‑shipping ratio isn’t favourable. With many high‑ticket products you can offer “free shipping,” absorb shipping from your margin, and still profit.

But if a $1,000 product costs $400 to ship, you can’t really do that on typical dropshipping margins without ending up razor‑thin.

On top of that, you’re competing with businesses buying in bulk and shipping from their own warehouses.

Their volume drives down freight costs, and they may also buy inventory cheaper. So they can out‑compete you on logistics and price.

Combine the competition, lack of brand search, and high shipping‑to‑value ratio and you get a much less appealing market for a new dropshipping business.

 There’s more: for many suppliers in this space, margins aren’t great. Because competition is high and big retailers dominate, brands often accept squeezed margins to get volume.

While there are outliers with great margins, many of the best‑selling furniture products come with lower gross margins—20% or less.

Twenty percent can be workable in many niches, but paired with high freight costs, weak brand search (so traffic costs more), and intense competition, it becomes a really tough proposition for starting—and sustaining—a profitable dropshipping business.

That’s why I say: do not dropship furniture.

The great news: there are plenty of other niches you can do successfully—hundreds, easily—if you follow the right process.

You can use AI tools like ChatGPT to help with the research.

Flip the furniture problems into criteria you do want. A big guiding light: don’t focus on products people need; focus on products people want.

Furniture is largely a need product—you need a dining table, lounge, bed, etc. (The luxury end can be more “want,” but it’s still iffy for beginners.)

Need‑driven mega‑markets (like consumer electronics) tend to have lower margins and fiercer competition.

People need washers and fridges; those categories are massive and cut‑throat. Winners exist, but starting there without a big budget is very difficult.

When you move to products people want, you often see better margins, less competition, smaller (but healthy) markets, and higher average order values.

Example: golf simulators. No one needs a golf simulator. Golfers can hit a range or play rounds.

But many buy simulators for their garage or basement for convenience and practice—and bundles sell for $5,000–$10,000 online because buyers are passionate.

Marketing is easier in passion niches. You tend to find recognisable brands—not household names, but well‑known within the community.

A non‑golfer won’t know many golf brands; a golfer will. That’s what you’re looking for: visible brands in a defined passion niche.

Competition guidance: when researching, I use Google Shopping to gauge. In the U.S., I don’t want to see more than ~15–20 competitors for the brands I plan to sell.

If most clusters around 10 serious advertisers, great—let’s go. Outliers higher than that are fine; most should be reasonable.

Size vs. price guidance: big isn’t bad, but big must be expensive. If a very large item is only ~$1,000, it will be hard to ship profitably.

If it’s really big, I want to see $5,000+ price points (rule of thumb; there are always outliers).

So, to start your high‑ticket dropshipping business: build a list of ideas where products are high‑ticket, have identifiable brands (your prospective suppliers), don’t show excessive competition, and won’t be a shipping nightmare. You’ll be pointed in the right direction.

If you’d like a step‑by‑step process—including how I use AI to research—we have a $27 course called the Passion to Profit Blueprint which will show you everything you need to do to find profitable products to dropship time and time again.

You’ll also get access to our niche verification service where my team vets your choices and gives the green light—or steers you to better options—until you land on the right product.

Click here to get the Passion To Profit Blueprint.