Navigating the world of dropshipping can be tricky, especially when it comes to deciding where to sell your products. While many dropshippers instinctively focus on the US market, believing it to be the safest or easiest option, it's worth questioning whether this is truly the best strategy. The allure of the US market is strong, but what if limiting yourself to a single country is actually holding you back?
This article will explore the pros and cons of dropshipping in the USA and help you decide if international dropshipping might be the more profitable and scalable path for your business.
Whether you're just starting out or are an experienced dropshipper looking to expand your horizons, this guide will provide valuable insights to help you decide which markets are best suited for your business.
Advantages of dropshipping in the United States
Here are some of the key benefits of focusing your dropshipping efforts on the USA:
Language and communication
You can run your entire store and customer service in a single language, English. This is a huge advantage for native English speakers wanting to tap into one of the world's largest consumer markets.
Faster Shipping
You can often offer reliable shipping times to US addresses, with many orders arriving in as little as 14 days. This is a significant improvement compared to the 30-day or longer shipping times often seen in other countries.
Strong infrastructure
The US market has a massive consumer base with well-developed infrastructure, including widespread internet access and established digital payment systems. This results in smoother transactions and fewer technical barriers compared to emerging markets.
Disadvantages of dropshipping in the USA
While targeting the US market with a dropshipping business might seem like a straightforward path to success, it's not without its challenges:
Extremely competitive markets
Being the largest economy on earth, the USA is home to a lot of strong ecommerce giants with websites people can visit to buy anything they want. There's Amazon, Walmart, and many more cropping up all the time. The presence of these companies alone can make dropshipping in the USA pretty challenging.
Not to mention, large, developed markets have tons of smaller merchants. Shopify now supports millions of active stores worldwide, with a substantial portion operating within American borders. These numbers continue climbing each year. While both the giants and the smaller merchants don't necessarily dropship in the USA exclusively, these examples give a clear image of the level of competition you'll be up against as a dropshipper in the USA.
The sheer volume of businesses competing for attention means that standing out requires exceptional marketing skills, unique product positioning, or significant advertising budgets. New entrepreneurs often find themselves overwhelmed by the need to differentiate their offerings in such a crowded marketplace.
Customers expectations are high
For many new dropshippers, the high bar for customer service and fulfillment set by companies like Amazon presents a significant challenge. American consumers have grown accustomed to services like two-day shipping, easy returns, and round-the-clock customer support. This makes it difficult for a beginner to compete.
New dropshippers targeting the US often struggle to meet these elevated expectations. Providing the level of customer service Americans have come to expect—including immediate responses to inquiries and easy return policies—requires significant resources. This can quickly eat into profit margins and create major operational challenges for those just starting out.
Expensive customer acquisition costs
To succeed in the USA dropshipping market, you'll have to spend more on ads just to get noticed. Digital advertising costs in the United States are some of the highest in the world, so you're up against a lot of competitors.
How many of those ad clicks turn into sales depends on your product and your store, but if you get everything right, you could still double your profits just by switching to a different market instead of dropshipping in the USA. For instance, you might want to try smaller, developed markets like Norway or Finland where there's less competition.
The bottom line is that it costs more to acquire customers in the US. This means you need higher conversion rates and larger order values to even be profitable. Many successful dropshippers have found that their advertising dollars go a lot further in less saturated international markets, giving them a much better return on their investment.
Why should you consider dropshipping outside of the US?
Because the dropshipping model already relies on global suppliers—most of whom are based in China—your own location is irrelevant. The entire world is your potential market, not just the USA.
While some US suppliers exist, the vast majority are located overseas.
These suppliers often ship to dozens of countries, from major markets to smaller ones, creating a built-in path for international sales. Limiting yourself to the US market means you're not fully leveraging the global nature of your supply chain. For non-US dropshippers, this is an immediate opportunity to think globally and gain a competitive edge by exploring markets beyond the United States.
International dropshipping: 3 things to consider
Whether you are a US dropshipper or a dropshipper located in another country, below we will cover three things you should consider before testing another market:
Choose a country with an English-speaking population
Assuming you don't plan to invest your money and time translating your entire store into another language, you should consider the English speaking population of your selected audience. For instance, only 5% of Brazilians speak English, while in Denmark, the English speaking population is 86%.
This allows you to maintain a consistent customer experience and simplifies your marketing efforts, as you won't need to create separate campaigns for different languages.
Consider purchasing power when dropshipping internationally
Because the cost of living is already quite high there, it seems that many Norwegians are actually okay with spending $30 on a T-Shirt. But for someone in a market where the average income is lower, $30 might be a price reserved for a high-end clothing item. Pay a lot of attention to these differences from country to country because they might significantly reduce your conversion rate.
Understanding local economic conditions helps you price products appropriately for each market. Countries with higher disposable income often support premium pricing strategies, while emerging markets may require volume-based approaches with lower margins per unit but potentially higher overall sales.
Research delivery infrastructure
Note also that some remote countries don't have the postal infrastructure that's taken for granted in Europe and the United States. For instance, many suppliers will say you can't track orders shipped to South Africa or Brazil, which could lead to issues down the line.
This is true especially when combined with the fact that in remote countries, a lot of deliveries never reach the recipient. These developing markets tend to have extremely strict customs policies or flawed postal services where packages are often "lost" somewhere en route.
Suppliers might also inform you that there's an extra delivery fee for shipping to such places, even though the delivery was advertised as free.
Case study: International dropshipping vs. dropshipping in the USA
One of the merchants who is also a US dropshipper agreed to share his Google Analytics stats with us for this case study on dropshipping in the USA. This information will offer some insight to help guide your decisions about which countries are worth testing. We aren't able to disclose the personal information about the merchant including his store's name, but we can say that he is selling a wide range of women's and men's clothing and accessories.
A few other important background details include:
- All of his products come from China and are dropshipped using DSers-AliExpress Dropshipping
- The store offers standard delivery options: 14-day delivery to the USA (with ePacket) and 30+ days delivery to other countries (China Post).
- His website is in English and has never been translated into other languages.
- The website support is also offered in English only.
- The majority of traffic comes from Facebook advertising.
Top countries by conversion rate
Quick note: a conversion rate is the % of visitors to your site who make a purchase. For the purpose of this dropshipping USA case study, you can calculate it by dividing the number of sales by the number of visitors.
The chart represents the statistics of more than 2,500,000 visitors to his site and includes only countries with 100+ orders.
Here are the top 20 countries ranked by ecommerce conversion rate:
Even though the United States is the biggest traffic source on this site, its conversion rate is 1.5 times smaller than Australia. Scandinavia (Norway, Finland, Denmark) take three of the top 10 slots, which suggests that it is a must-try region.
Other countries you might want to try include Ireland, Canada and the United Kingdom. All of these have good conversion rates, are less competitive, and easily scalable. Your ads can quickly reach every person in Belgium, but your budget would have to be insanely high to reach everyone in the UK.
Dropshipping USA vs. international: Top countries by average order value
In this specific dropshipping case study, the US is not even in the top 20 countries for average order value.
In fact, the average order value in the US is only US$39.29. This matters because just as cutting your advertising costs in half might double your profits, you can also earn more by selling extra to one customer.
Here are the top 20 countries ranked by average order value:
In this store's case, 8 out of 10 countries on the list are in Europe, and the majority of those in the Scandinavian region. Norway also proves to be a top choice as it appears in second and fourth places on the charts. While Argentina looks great, I'd recommend eliminating it from your testing list since the conversion rate is only 0.46%.
These two simple graphs allow us to create a sample scenario:
- Out of 100 visitors from Norway, you would receive 3.54 orders of $51.25 in value each. In other words, 100 visitors = $181.43 in sales.
- Out of 100 visitors from the US, you'd only receive 3 orders of $39.29 value so that 100 visitors= $117.87.
The difference is $63.56. If you have 1,000 visitors per day, you're leaving almost $650 on the table each and every day.
Conclusion: Dropshipping outside of the United States
The point of sharing this dropshipping USA case study is to show that the US might not actually be your best bet. Because of this, you really need to test other countries—even if you don't speak the language or your site is only in English. This is especially true if you're working with a smaller budget, as the examples here prove that smaller, cheaper markets can still bring in great profits.
While your store's numbers will definitely be different, you should use the graphs and insights we've shared to build your own list of countries to test. Give them a shot and track your results, then tweak your marketing plan. This case study is also a reminder of how important it is to do your research and analysis at every step of your dropshipping journey. This is how you make smarter, data-driven decisions for your business.
Dropshipping outside of the United States FAQ
Is dropshipping outside of the United States more profitable than in the USA?
It can be. Our case study showed that while the US had high traffic, other markets like Norway and Australia had a significantly higher conversion rate and average order value, leading to greater profit potential per visitor.
What are the biggest challenges for dropshipping in the USA?
The main challenges are high competition, demanding customer expectations (e.g. fast shipping and easy returns), and higher customer acquisition costs (CAC) due to expensive digital advertising.
Which countries are best to target for international dropshipping?
The best countries often include smaller, developed, English-speaking markets with good purchasing power, such as Norway, Australia, Canada, the UK, and Ireland, which tend to have less competition.