High Ticket vs Low Ticket Dropshipping: What’s the Best Option in 2023?
Low ticket and high ticket dropshipping – Which one is more profitable? Which one is more likely to succeed?
If you’re reading this, you’re probably trying to figure out what the main differences between these two types of dropshipping are. And how those differences will affect the decisions you make about the Ecommerce model you choose.
To break things down for you, and make it easy to understand. We’ve compared high ticket and low ticket dropshipping in this post so you can make an informed decision.
The way you operate and market your dropshipping business can look wildly different depending on the price point of the products you decide to sell.
Not everyone uses the same terminology, but generally, something considered “low ticket” is a product under $200, and something considered “high ticket” costs more than $800. (The value in between can be more of a no man’s land that’s very subjective.)
When you start researching information about dropshipping, the majority of the content you’ll find is about selling low ticket products.
For example, selling products on Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, through social media ads, and so on.
Here at Dropship Breakthru, we’re all about high ticket dropshipping products, priced anywhere from $800 to $5,000 and up.
The question: Is low or high ticket dropshipping better for you? We have a personal favorite, but the answer isn’t so simple because it depends on what you want to do and how much work you’re willing to put into it.
Let’s go through the pros and cons of both.
| Low Ticket Dropshipping | High Ticket Dropshipping |
|---|---|
| Items are $200 or less | Items are $800 or more |
| Impulse buys can lead to a lot of returns. | Customers tend to put thought into their purchase, reducing the chance of returns. |
| Shipping times are often long or delayed, and when the item does show up, it’s in a heavily taped box, usually from China. | Shipping times are reasonable because if you do it our way – you’ll use local suppliers. |
| Items are of poor quality. (Again, a lot of returns!) | Items are high-quality because you’re using local suppliers of brands that adhere to your country’s standards and regulations. |
| Difficult to get paid traffic. | Use Google ads to capture demand that already exists. (If you have a problem, do you go to Facebook or do you go to Google to find the solution?) |
| More complaints, more bad reviews, more returns, more turn-and-burn. | Fewer complaints, fewer returns, real business |
| Lower profits | Bigger profits |
| More support team needed to manage customer service. | Smaller support team needed |
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Why Dropship In The First Place?
If you’re reading this, you’re on your way down the rabbit hole – learning about low and high ticket dropshipping – and now you’re wondering which one is better.
Before we get into that, let’s touch on the benefits of dropshipping overall. If you’re looking for a quick, low-cost way to start an Ecommerce business, dropshipping is worth your time.
You can launch for a few hundred dollars, and we’ve seen (and helped) many people launch a dropshipping business in 30 days or less. You can’t get much faster than that when creating a new business.
“Whether low ticket or high ticket, dropshipping businesses are a great, quick way to get started in business with a low cost of entry, low risk, and little overhead.” – Jon Warren
Pros & Cons Of Low Ticket Dropshipping
Some people think that starting with a low ticket dropshipping business is the easier choice. While we disagree, we’ll still give you our take on the pros and cons of it
Pros
- It’s easier than producing your own direct-to-consumer products, which can involve a lot of different hoops and difficulties. With dropshipping, someone else has already created the product. You’re just helping them market and distribute that product to customers.
- With low ticket items, you’re not short of options on products to sell – there are thousands of items out there for you to consider.
- There’s a real possibility for a huge quick win with a low-ticket item if some of your social media ads go viral or a product gains a lot of traction.
- Buying a low-ticket product in bulk is easier and costs less (if you’re doing private labeling).
Cons
- With low ticket items, you’re essentially forced to run demand generation campaigns and ads that interrupt (rather annoyingly) the social media experience of your potential customers. It’s likely consumers don’t even realize that they want or need your product, and you need to convince them otherwise. Doing this consistently and profitably is very difficult for inexperienced marketers.
- There are wildly unpredictable costs for actually making a sale. You have to fulfill a ton of individual sales to make the same profit that you would with a small handful of high ticket sales. With those high order numbers, you’ll likely need a team to help fulfill them on time. This introduces significant, unexpected overhead costs.
- With a larger volume of orders comes a higher risk of packages being damaged during shipment, mistakes on orders, and frustrated customers. That’s a high volume of complaints to address if you’re on your own, which means you may need to pay for the expense of growing your customer service team.
- Products can lose their appeal and become unpopular at the drop of a hat. Low ticket products are a turn-and-burn process – once you ride the wave of one product, you have to start the process again with a new one.
- Often, low ticket products are also low quality or are largely untested in your customer’s hands. This increases the rate of returns, customer complaints, negative reviews, ad account suspensions, and legal problems in some extreme scenarios.
“Your method of advertising in low ticket dropshipping is interrupting potential customers as they’re scrolling through social media to get them to stop long enough to see your ad. It’s a creative game.” – Ben Knegendorf
Pros & Cons Of High Ticket Dropshipping
Pros
- Instead of creating demand, high ticket dropshipping takes advantage of demand capture. Because the products you’re selling are from recognizable brands in the target market, consumers are already looking for them, meaning you don’t need to do that heavy lifting.
- There’s a high profit per order with high ticket items (often over $1000 net per order), which means you get more time back in your day to do things you enjoy. What can take hundreds of sales of low ticket items only takes a small handful of sales of high ticket items for the same profit margin. This means less work for the same money.
- High ticket items have often been on the market for significantly long periods. So they’re already tried and tested. They’re high quality, and they do what they promise. For you, this means fewer problems, chargebacks, returns, and defects to deal with.
- You can build a real, solid business and brand without having to cycle through countless products. You’re selling an asset instead of the hottest new trend. Once your business is established, it creates an easy way to leverage your brand into producing your own products to produce higher margins.
- High ticket dropshipping is a great way to get paid to learn. When you’re building your business, you learn so much about a deep, established industry, and you can use those learned skills in other businesses and contexts. If you end up building a successful high ticket dropshipping business, you’ll be an expert on things like Google Ads, SEO, and copywriting, which are highly sought-after skills.
- High ticket items are often created and maintained by local businesses, so you’re supporting your community while selling fantastic products.
Cons
Honestly, there’s not much to say here. The biggest and only con with high ticket dropshipping is the con of dropshipping in general: you don’t control the supply chain.
That is, in the beginning, you’re reliant on your suppliers’ supply chain to fulfill orders. This can create a few headaches along the way that might not exist if you were producing your own products. Having said that, there’s nothing here that you can’t overcome, particularly with some good guidance from experienced dropshippers. (Like us!)
You can read more about what high ticket dropshipping is here.
“High ticket dropshipping is a great avenue to get into a market you’re interested in and then transition to making your own product, as well. It’s a great way to impact the market before making your own products with less risk.” – Jon Warren
For more information on dropshipping, you can listen to our podcast, The Dropship Podcast, on your favorite podcast platform and share it with your friends.
Key Takeaways
No matter whether you choose low ticket or high ticket, starting a dropshipping business can be life-changing. It’s a great way to learn the ropes of Ecommerce, while you enjoy the freedom of working when you want and building your own source of income.
You just need to decide what kind of product you want to sell, what kind of time and manpower commitment you can make, and what you want to get out of the experience.
If you’d love to learn more about how to take your first steps toward launching your own high ticket dropshipping business, watch our free training here.
Want to start your own high ticket dropshipping business?
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Article by Ben Knegendorf
Ben Knegendorf realized at 29 he needed to find another career path. Since then, he’s:
- Successfully exited a high-ticket drop shipping business that he helped take from $1 to $11M annual revenue in just 2.5 years
- Eliminated $40,000+ of personal debt
- Joined Dropship Breakthru as co-owner in 2021
© Dropship Breakthru 2021