How to Start a High Ticket Dropshipping Business in 2024 (Products, Tactics + Examples)

11/29/2022

High ticket dropshipping has gotten a lot of attention over the past few years.

Some folks swear by it, others say it’s too risky. Some even say it’s too scammy to be a viable business opportunity.

So, who to believe?

Well, in this go-to guide, we’re putting high ticket dropshipping under the microscope.

By the end, your brain will be bursting with everything there is to know about selling high ticket items. You’ll discover the possibilities, the risks, and whether or not it’s right for you.

Sounds good? Let’s jump in!

What is High Ticket Dropshipping?

Put simply; high ticket dropshipping is a form of dropshipping that focuses on selling more expensive items as opposed to cheaper ones.

I know, initially, the concept didn’t blow my mind either.

But there’s more to it than that.

Because when you break it down, it’s actually quite a different approach to ‘traditional’ dropshipping.

As you probably know, most traditional dropshipping focuses on selling impulse buys.

Typically, impulse buys don’t cost more than a couple of dollars and sell for a pretty low margin. Think fidget spinners or posture braces.

With high-end dropshipping, you’re selling items that can cost anywhere from $100 up to $10,000 (or more). Think electric bikes or industrial machinery.

That distinction matters because the variation in product price has massive implications for how you’ll run your business.

For example, with a high ticket store, your marketing strategy will be vastly modified, how you source your products will change, and your customer service will look different too.

So, while high ticket and low ticket dropshipping both use the same fulfillment model, in practice, they’re two very different beasts.

We’ll dive deeper into this later, but let’s pivot to learn why you should or shouldn’t consider getting into high ticket dropshipping.

📝Editor’s Note: How to easily boost margins when dropshipping

Even with high ticket products, profit margins in dropshipping can be low. But with the right upsell strategy you can pump your margins higher and spend more on ads than your competitors. We built an upsell calculator based off data from 30,000+ Shopify stores like yours. Simply input your vertical and basic sales data to understand how much additional revenue ReConvert could generate per month, if you installed it today.

Open Upsell Calculator

High Ticket Dropshipping Pros and Cons

As you can imagine, high ticket dropshipping offers juicy rewards for those who can pull it off successfully. But just like any business model, it’s not without its risks and drawbacks.

Let’s look at the pros and cons.

High Ticket Dropshipping Benefits

High ticket dropshipping has a number of really great things about it:

1. More Profit From Each Sale

Selling high ticket items usually means you’ll enjoy bigger profits per sale.

For example, if you’re selling a home cinema kit for $500 and your margin is 30%, you’ll pocket a cool $150 off each sale.

Contrast this with selling low-ticket items. If you sell a t-shirt for $20 with the same margin of 30%, you’ll only make a paltry $6 off each sale.

That means you’ll need to sell 25 t-shirts to make the same profit as selling one home cinema kit.

Earning more profit from each sale means two things:

You’ll need to make fewer sales to make a living.
You can reinvest more cash back into your business to grow at a faster rate.

2. Lower Volume of Customer Support

Nowadays, you can’t afford to offer sub-par customer service. But if you’ve ever run an eCommerce business, you’ll know how much time customer service eats.

With high ticket dropshipping, you’ll likely have a lower volume of orders.

This means you don’t have to dedicate as much time or resources compared to a traditional high-volume, low-margin dropshipping store.

The implication? You’ll free up more time to focus on growing the other areas of your business without sacrificing the quality of your support.

3. More Tailored Marketing

When you’re selling a small selection of high-ticket items, you can focus your marketing efforts more tightly.

Instead of the scatter-gun approach that’s synonymous with many general dropshipping stores, a high ticket store can dial in its messaging and offers to appeal to one specific buyer persona.

This makes it easier to optimize your paid advertising and offer customers a more compelling shopping experience.

4. More Sustainable Business Model

Traditional dropshipping usually involves hopping from trend to trend, selling the latest hot product until it becomes too saturated before moving on.

But high ticket dropshipping typically involves selling less trendy products. The means you’ll face less competition from other dropshippers.

But it also means you can focus on actually building a brand and customer base for the long term, not just a quick-buck flash-in-the-pan Shopify store.

High Ticket Dropshipping Drawbacks

With the good out of the way, let's examine some of the negative aspects of high ticket dropshipping:

1. Higher Start-Up Costs

The capital you’ll need to get your business off the ground will still be low compared to many other business models.

But compared with low-ticket dropshipping, you’ll need a bit more cash in the bank.

Why? Well, you need...

More money to invest in an excellent store design
A larger advertising budget due to the higher acquisition cost
Cash reserves to purchase high ticket items when you make a sale.

2. Orders Carry More Risk

If a $15 phone case goes missing in transit, it’s usually no big deal.

You just issue a refund, and there are no hard feelings.

However, if a $2,500 restaurant appliance doesn’t arrive, it’s a whole other story.

For instance, what happens if your high-ticket supplier disappears into the night with your $1,500 under their arm?

See, as the potential for profits increases, so does the potential for losses should things go awry.

It’s essential to factor that into the equation before jumping in with both feet.

3. Difficult for Beginners

Selling higher ticket items requires a more sophisticated marketing approach.

People don’t just buy a $6,000 fishing boat after seeing a Facebook ad. You’ll need to map out their customer journey and market to them accordingly.

Because of that, selling high ticket items is probably not the best choice for newcomers to the world of eCommerce.

If you’ve no experience with branding or building sales funnels, you’ll likely have more success with low-ticket dropshipping first.

How to Find High Ticket Products

Okay, by now, you’ve got a better idea of what’s involved in high ticket dropshipping.

Usually, the next question people have is, “where do you find products for high ticket dropshipping?”

Before we break that down, there are three pre-conditions you must follow when selling high ticket items:

Focus on Quality: Big purchases come with big expectations. Inferior quality products at a premium price is a one-way ticket to charge-back city. Order samples and appraise items carefully.

Use Premium Shipping: Customers spending a lot of money don’t want to wait six weeks for their order to arrive. Use some of your larger profit margins to send parcels quickly via DHL or FedEx.

Always Vet Suppliers: Broken, damaged, or non-functioning goods simply won’t cut it at higher price points. Find a competent, trustworthy supplier with whom you can build a lasting relationship. Look for excellent communication, a decent refund policy, and proper quality control.

With those things in mind, here are six steps to unearth winning product ideas:

Six Steps to Find High Ticket Dropshipping Products

Brainstorm: Everyone has at least one idea for a high ticket item that will sell. Open a Google Doc and ask, what high ticket items you think might sell well. This is a great starting point.

Examine What’s Popular: Popular products have proven demand. Hop over to Amazon best sellers. Look at the types of products people are buying. Is it possible to dropship similar products? Add them to your list.

Study Hobbies: People like golfers, hikers and musicians are irrationally passionate about their hobby which means they’re willing to spend money on equipment. What do they need that you can supply? Jot these items down too.

Check out Social Shopping Sites: Open Pinterest and browse through various niches such as interior design, baking, gardening etc. Are there any products you could dropship here?

Think about B2B: Businesses generally have more money to spend than individual consumers. Think about the types of equipment organizations such as restaurants, schools and offices might need. Add them to your list as well.

6. Validate Your Ideas: Once you have 30+ product ideas on paper, hop over to google trends and enter each one to see there’s sufficient search volume for your product. If the trend is flat or increasing, that’s good news.

High Ticket Dropshipping Product Example:

Okay, using the steps above, let’s find a high ticket drop shipping product worth testing.

Using Amazon Bestsellers, I found this telescope ranked #2 in camera and photo.

So, I hopped over to Aliexpress, searched for ‘telescope,’ filtered by ‘most ordered’ and found this remarkably similar product for around $100 cheaper:

Then I jumped over to Google Trends and input ‘Telescope.’ As you can see, the data shows the term has solid search volume over the past five years.

And even more, interestingly, its volume has increased significantly in the last twelve months:

Based on these findings, this product would be worth adding to your refined list of products you’d like to test building a store around.

Easy, right?

Keep searching in this manner until you find a solid list of products worth taking to the next step.

More High Ticket Items To Test in 2024

So, you now have a proven strategy to find high ticket items to sell - but let's look at a few more examples so you can get some solid ideas for products to test.

1. Induction cooking applicances

Demand for induction cooking appliances is on the rise. As you can see the shipping from this particular supplier is super high at almost $300! Therefore, to make profit dropshipping these items individually would be difficult. We suggest finding a local supplier, or ordering in bluk from Alibaba and using a 3-rd party warehouse solution.

2. Air Fryers

The high demand for air fryers makes them an amazing product to dropship. You can find suppliers on Aliexpress with European and US-based warehouses which means delivery times will be shorter for your customers (typically, 1-7 days). However, you'll be competing with established brands in the kitchen space - so think about ways you can differentiate yourself. Can you beat them on price? Can you run ads to a free downloadable airfryer recipe book, and then market your airfryer to leads who sign up? Can you target a more specific market segment - i.e. Airfryers for athletes. Try to think outside the box for ways you can outperform existing players. Remember, you're a lot more agile than they are.

3. Massage Guns

If you're into sports, you've probably seen massage guns by now. However, a quick look at the search data tells you it's not too late to start selling these money makers - strong demand still exists. With top of the line guns retailing for $200-300, there's plenty of room to enter the market with a more affordable offering. Again, think how you can stand out from competitors - can you market specifically to yoga enthusiasts? Can you sell wholesale to local physiotherapy clinics? Could you forge a partnership with a fitness influencer on Instagram? Find a unique angle and go for it.

4. Robot Vacuums

Robot vacuums are still growing in popularity. And since they're a bet on general human laziness, we reckon their popularity won't slow down anytime soon! Top of the line robot vacuums retail for well above $1,000, so there's plenty of scope to carve out a nice profit margin here. Since it's a slightly more technical item, you're going to have to be ready provide expert assistance to customers who need help.

Ok, hopefully these high ticket item examples have got your creative juices flowing. The key thing to remember with any product is "how can I best market this item?" Remember: a good product is boosts the odds of success. But once you have a viable product, it's how you market it that decides the success or failure of your venture.

With that in mind, let's zoom out a little to look at some high ticket dropshipping niches - explore these verticals to generate even more high ticket item ideas for your store.

What Are The Best High Ticket Dropshipping Niches?

Some niches are particularly well suited to high ticket dropshipping.

You want to look for niches where there’s a low-level of brand loyalty and a higher perceived product value.

Here’s a quick list of high ticket niches to kick-start your search:

Home theater equipment (e.g., projectors)
Automotive accessories (e.g., Car seat
Office furniture
Commercial appliances
Home appliances
Interior design
Personal transport (Electric bikes, scooters, etc.)
Consumer electronics (wearables

💡Pro Tip: With high ticket dropshipping, you don’t always have to sell directly to consumers. There are plenty of businesses that need imported products and are happy to pay a premium for you to manage the process.

How to Find High-Ticket Suppliers

Dropshipping is simply a fulfillment method. That means you can dropship products from a local supplier just as easily as you can from an international marketplace.

In fact, working with local suppliers and manufacturers is excellent because it allows you to side-step the extended shipping times and language barriers.

That said, often, the most accessible place to find a supplier is via an online marketplace.

When choosing suppliers, always ensure they have:

A proven record of good service (check reviews, testimonials, etc.)
Excellent communication (fluent English, fast responses, etc.)
An impeccable quality control process

With that in mind, here are three places to look:

1. AliExpress

The grand-daddy of dropshipping marketplaces. Aliexpress has suppliers for just about every type of product you could imagine.

2. Spocket

Spocket is a platform that connects you with thousands of US-based (and EU-based) suppliers for a small monthly fee.

You’ll find a large selection of goods, and even some branded items like these watches I spotted after a quick search:

3. Print on Demand Companies

Print-on-demand companies allow you to upload designs to various products and sell them on your store at a mark-up.

With a bit of research, you can find high-ticket items that are begging to be customized.

For example, here’s a customizable duvet I found on Printify that you could easily sell for $100+ to the right audience.

If you’ve got an excellent idea for print-on-demand designs, you can bet your bottom dollar that these types of products have better margins than a $20 t-shirt.

How to Set Up A High-End Dropshipping Store

We’ve already created an in-depth guide covering how to create a Shopify dropshipping store.

So, jump over to that post if you need help getting set up.

That said, there are a couple of special considerations for high-ticket dropshipping stores.

1. Premium Branding

If you’re going to get customers to part with their hard-earned money, you’re going to have to inspire trust with a killer brand.

Take high ticket dropshipping store Warmly Decor as an example:

Notice how their website oozes with luxury and professionalism. Their images are beautiful, their copy is well written, and their web design is on point.

All these factors come together to give the buyer confidence that they’re not messing around with a rookie outfit.

And with that confidence comes the willingness to spend more on your products.

2. Professional Photography

A whopping 75% of online shoppers rely on product photos when deciding to purchase something.

So having eye-catching photos is absolutely vital for high-ticket drop shipping.

Most suppliers will send you photos - however, for the most part, you’ll want to hire a pro to take your own.

This ensures your high ticket items look appealing and puts you a step ahead of any competition that was too lazy to order a sample and organize a photoshoot.

3. Incredible Customer Service

Ever been to a five-star hotel or fancy restaurant? Remember how good the service was, right?

That’s because when people are spending lots of money, they expect everything to be taken care of by the merchant or service provider.

If a customer is dropping $8,000 for a new commercial oven, they don’t want to have to wait three days for a reply from your customer support.

Go above and beyond the call of duty for your high-ticket customers.

Be proactive in reaching out to customers to make sure they’re happy and updating them about their order, and you’ll keep them (or their friends) coming back for more.

How To Market Your High Ticket Dropshipping Store

Once you’ve found a product and set-up your store, it’s time to think about marketing.

If you’ve seen any dropshipping gurus, you’ll know that social media marketing is by far the most popular method for marketing dropshipping stores.

Sure, Facebook and Instagram ads are great for low-ticket impulse buys - but setting them up the right way for high-ticket items isn’t so easy.

A more straightforward strategy is to advertise to people who are already looking for your products using two methods:

1. PPC Shopping Ads

Shopping ads for high ticket dropshipping

Google shopping ads and Microsoft Bing Ads are fantastic for selling high-ticket items because the searchers are ‘qualified buyers’ - meaning they’re actively looking to research or products like yours.

Instead of trying to target ‘pizza restaurant owners looking for a new pizza over’ on Facebook, Google ads allow you to filter out any low-converting traffic and show your ads straight to red-hot prospective customers.

💡Pro Tip: Google Skillshop has free training courses to help you become a Google Ads master.

2. SEO for High Ticket Dropshipping

If you don’t have the budget for Google Ads right now or want to invest in a long-term strategy, optimizing your store’s SEO is the way to go.

SEO (short for Search Engine Optimization) involves optimizing your store to rank organically on Google.

Basically, when people search for terms related to your products, your store will pop up on the search results’ first page.

There’s a lot that goes into optimizing your store’s SEO. That makes it all the more impressive that ReConvert’s CEO, Eric manages to fit it all into this 10-minute video:

How to Get More Profit From Your High Ticket Store

Selling high-ticket items means you're going to have a higher cost-per-acquisition.

Basically, instead of spending $15 on ads to get a purchase from Google, you might need to spend $80 or more to acquire a customers.

So, when you're spending that much, it's essential to maximize the amount of profit your earn from each customer.

How to do that? With thank-you page upsells and cross-sells.

Post-purchase offers work so well with high ticket drop shipping because they don't interfere with the buyer's journey.

In other words, you're not distracting or confusing your shopper with discounts before they've sealed the deal.

Get creative with how you structure your thank-you page offer:

Cross-sell a lower-priced complimentary item. (e.g. A helmet to go with a new electric scooter)
Offer customers a digital course or e-book on how to get the most from their new product.
Incorporate a subscription element like premium support or product insurance for $19/mo.

For a step-by-step breakdown of how to configure such offers on your Shopify store, check out this brilliant video from Stilyo's other founder, Ruth:

High Ticket Dropshipping Store Examples

Sometimes examples can help you visualize what a successful high-ticket dropshipping store looks like.

So here are 3 of the best high ticket stores to give you an idea of where you need to aim for.

1. Litfad

Litfad is a beautifully designed high-ticket dropshipping store that specializes in indoor lighting.

Notice how their homepage is organized to a tee with enticing product collections and imagery.

2. Phoenix

Phoenix is a high-ticket dropshipping store (or at least they started that way) that sells massage guns.

Their copywriting is brilliant and speaks directly to the pain points of their ideal customers.

3. Get Set Style Metro

High ticket dropshipping product example

Get Set Style Metro is a fantastic print-on-demand store with a wide range of cool designs.

In particular, check out their range of skate deck wall art starting at $200.

Sure, their product pages could undoubtedly be improved, but there’s no denying the appeal of their superb designs.

In Summary

So there you have it!

Hopefully, by now, you have a better idea of what’s involved in high ticket dropshipping.

The key takeaways from this article are:

High ticket dropshipping is an ecommerce business model where you sell more expensive items in your store, which are then fulfilled to the customer by a third-party supplier.
When building a high ticket dropshipping business, the most critical steps are finding a great product and choosing a reliable supplier.
Don’t shy away from becoming a B2B seller - remember; it’s easier to sell a $2,000 product to a business than an individual consumer
Investing in premium branding, product photography, and customer service is essential when building your store
Using SEO strategies or paid search ads are usually the best ways to market your high ticket store.
Familiarize yourself with the pros and cons of high ticket dropshipping before diving in headfirst.

Now over to you! Are you thinking about getting into high ticket dropshipping and have questions? Stick them in the comments below, and we’ll do our best to answer them!