TikTok dropshipping can be profitable in 2024 for dropshippers that:
Finding profitable TikTok dropshipping campaigns requires a lot of trial and error. Many dropshippers fail multiple times before they find a profitable product and campaign format that they can scale up to earn a solid profit from. TikTok dropshippers have a few marketing strategies to test out when promoting products, including organic TikTok videos, paying TikTok influencers to promote the product, or paying for TikTok Ads. Any of these strategies can result in a profitable TikTok dropshipping campaign, but it’s impossible to know without properly testing the performance of different creatives.
Many TikTok dropshippers find that profit margins are thin because people mostly buy cheaper products on TikTok priced around $10. Therefore, dropshippers looking to generate sufficient profits from TikTok generally need to sell a high volume of products.
TikTok dropshippers that use TikTok as a marketing channel to drive traffic to a Shopify store or other Ecommerce platform should promote their products in a professional environment to optimize profit potential. It doesn’t matter if you can get a TikTok user to your online store if you can’t convert the user into a sale.
For example, TikTok dropshipper Seena Rezaei showcases the importance of using a professional website, as he was able to generate $49,140 in TikTok sales in just one week. He attributes much of his success to his high converting website, which focused on design principles like proper use of color theory and a mobile-first layout.
TikTok is a social video platform, so the ability to create engaging videos that feature dropshipping products is essential for generating profits with TikTok dropshipping. A successful TikTok dropshipper on Reddit recommends trying to replicate the viral videos of others to better understand what it takes to create engaging TikTok video creatives with viral potential.
When setting up a TikTok dropshipping campaign, it’s important to consider the target audience for your product when brainstorming what kind of content should promote the product. If the content doesn’t resonate with the target audience, your TikTok dropshipping campaign likely won't be profitable. One TikTok dropshipper on Reddit recommends targeting TikTok users that are 18+. These users are likely to have more disposable income and so have a higher chance of purchasing a dropshipping product through TikTok.
Those looking for an online business model with higher profit margins than TikTok dropshipping can consider local lead generation. Local lead generation earns profit margins of up to 90% by selling leads to local service businesses. The business model entails creating websites that attract organic traffic and selling the leads to business owners for between $500 and $3,000/month.
In the following article, we discuss how profitable TikTok dropshipping is and lay out the steps to starting a profitable TikTok dropshipping business.
Is TikTok Dropshipping Profitable?
TikTok dropshipping is profitable, but you have to put in a lot of effort and dedication to make it work. As an aspiring dropshipper, be careful not to fall in love with the idea of making money in an instant, despite all the alluring testimonials from established dropshippers. If you put in the work and find a winning product, your dropshipping business will most likely be successful.
The TikTok platform is home to approximately 1 billion Tik Tok users. You have access to that market. Unfortunately, none of those potential customers will buy from your dropshipping store if you just sit there and hope for the best. You have to spend time on product research, niche selection, market analysis, finding suppliers, and marketing your products.
However, it's also crucial to understand that the dropshipping industry is extremely saturated and competitive. Coming up with a unique dropshipping product is one thing, selling them in the midst or hundreds, or even thousands of other sellers is another. As discouraging as it may seem, dropshipping is a business model that has been exploited in every sense of the word.
What are TikTok dropshipping products I can sell?
Here are examples of TikTok dropshipping products you can sell:
- LED strip lights
- Star projectors
- Finger resistance bands
- Accessories such as necklaces and bracelets
- Beauty products
- Star projectors
- Water bottles
These are only a few of the many TikTok dropshipping products you can sell. It's crucial to understand that selling the most popular products isn't guaranteed to make your dropshipping business profitable. At the end of the day, it is your hard work and effort that will ultimately dictate the success of your TikTok store.
What is a TikTok dropshipping course?
A TikTok dropshipping course is a program designed to help you learn the basics of dropshipping, such as product research, sourcing your items, setting up your online store, and running marketing and advertising campaigns. Typically, TikTok dropshipping courses can cost anywhere between $200 to $5,000. However, keep in mind that you can always do your own research and figure everything out without having to spend thousands of dollars on a course.
Some platforms where you can take TikTok dropshipping courses include:
- Udemy
- Coursera
- Teachable
- Shopify
- YouTube
These are only a few examples. There are lots of websites and platforms where you can take TikTok dropshipping courses. You just have to find the one that fits your needs and budget the most.
What are examples of TikTok dropshipping stores?
Here are examples of TikTok dropshipping stores and the product that helped them go viral:
- LitGrips: A phone case with a built-in lighter in the back
- ClearJet: Customizable shower heads
- ElevatedStaff: Retractable and customizable staffs
- Yunix Shop: Colorful flying spinners
- My Fly Orb: Colorful flying orbs
This list is only a fraction of the thousands of dropshipping stores on TikTok. As mentioned earlier, there are over 5 million businesses on TikTok, and that number is only going to get bigger in the years to come.
Is TikTok profitable?
TikTok itself is a profitable online business model because you have access to the TikTok market, which is one of the biggest social media platforms today. Here are some stats to help you understand just how massive the TikTok platform is:
- In 2022, TikTok amassed over $9.4 billion in revenue, which is a 100% increase from the prior year.
- TikTok has over 3 billion downloads and is accessed by over a billion users every month.
- In the US, There are over 150 million active TikTok users every month, which makes up close to 40% of America's 330 million mobile internet users.
- Out of the 4.8 billion internet users in the world, 20.83% use TikTok regularly.
- A study in 2020 revealed that TikTok users aged 18 and above have collectively spent 1.43 billion hours on the TikTok app.
- During Q1 of 2023, TikTok accumulated over $5.53 million from in-app purchases alone.
- As of 2023, TikTok users have spent over $7 billion, making it only the second non-gaming application to reach this milestone.
Not only is TikTok already a juggernaut in the online space, it's also not showing signs of slowing down anytime soon, which is usually indicative of how profitable it can be in the long run for any entrepreneur looking to enter the market.
TikTok vs. Facebook dropshipping: Which is more profitable?
Tiktok dropshipping | facebook dropshipping | |
|---|---|---|
Audience Reach | Users are younger and easier to sell to. TikTok users are known to be impulse buyers. | Users are more diverse and scattered. You have a wider potential customer base, but have to spend more time reaching your ad spend. |
User Engagement | User engagement is higher since TikTok is filled with short-form video content, which appeals more to users. | User engagement highly depends on the advertising methods being used. |
Competition | Less saturated since TikTok dropshipping is relatively new compared to other dropshipping methods | More competitive since Facebook dropshipping has been around for years now. |
Platform Trust | It's easier to sell on TikTok, but it's harder to build trust due to the nature of the platform. TikTok is known more as a form of entertainment, not an avenue for business. | Facebook has established itself as an application where you can conduct all sorts of businesses, especially selling different kinds of products. |
Conversion Rate | Despite TikTok's reputation of having impulse buyers, it only has a 1.1% conversion rate (CVR). This is because TikTok users are more inclined to purchase products being promoted by influencers than to click on ads. | Facebook may be more expensive for advertisers, but it has a much higher CVR of 9.21% compared to TikTok. |
Ad Spend | TikTok ads are profitable for dropshipping because they have a relatively low cost-per-click (CPC). TikTok has only started gaining popularity in recent years, which makes their advertising cheaper than most established platforms. The average CPC on TikTok is around $1.63. | CPC can vary, depending on the competition and niche you're going for. The average CPC on Facebook is around $1.84. |
Overall, TikTok wins over Facebook in terms of profitability and earning potential. While it can be very rewarding to dropship on Facebook, TikTok is more beginner friendly and isn't that far off from Facebook in terms of money-making potential.
How to start a profitable dropshipping business
1. Find a profitable niche or product
The best way to find winning products for TikTok dropshipping is by:
- Conducting product research. Product research, or niche selection, is looking for a popular product that has a high demand, has good profit margins, and is sustainable for inventory.
- Identifying consumer patterns and trends. To discover winning products, you have to understand what people are buying, where they’re buying, and how much they’re buying the products for.
- Look for cheap and affordable suppliers. Finding a winning product and sourcing from a low-cost supplier is a recipe for success.
You can find winning products for TikTok dropshipping using these tools:
- AliExpress Dropshipping Center
- Niche Scraper
- Dropship Spy
- Ecomhunt
- Commerce Inspector
- Sell The Trend
2. Look for a dropshipping supplier
Once you've selected a product or niche, finding a dropshipping supplier comes next. Typically, you'd want to look for a supplier that offers the best prices and is provides fast and efficient shipping. Some common dropshipping suppliers are:
- AliExpress
- Alibaba
- CJDropshipping
- SaleHoo
- Wholesale2b
- Worldwide Brands
3. Post and advertise your products
The best thing about dropshipping is being able to list and offer products without having to keep any inventory. Once you've found a supplier, you can go directly to posting your products and advertising them. Marketing your products usually involves creating an ad campaign.
An ad campaign is a marketing strategy which involves distributing multiple types of advertisements such as product videos, reviews, and testimonials. Here are some pointers to help you get your ad campaign up and running:
- Set objectives and targets: Identify goals you want to achieve through your ad campaign. Do you want to acquire new clients? Do you want to improve brand awareness? Do you want to launch new products or promote existing products? Having a clear definition of what you want to achieve will keep your ad campaign organized and intact.
- Define your target audience: Find out who exactly you're trying to reach with your ad campaign instead of casting your net too wide. At the end of the day, trying to sell your product to everybody can do you more harm than good. It will require more work, effort, and money.
- Pick an advertising channel that best suits your campaign: While it's certainly not a bad idea to promote your business on multiple platforms, keep in mind there might be parts of your campaign that don't mesh well with certain advertising channels. Examples of advertising channels you can utilize include email marketing, social media advertising, content marketing, and paid advertising.
To create a TikTok ad campaign for your dropshipping business, you need to:
- Create a TikTok account
- Develop TikTok marketing strategy
- Allocate a budget for your TikTok ad campaign
- Use TikTok Ads Manager to create your ads and manage them
- Get insights and market trends using TikTok Creative Center
4. Expand your advertising to other social media platforms
The best way to effectively market your products is to develop a cross-platform advertising strategy. In other words, advertise your business on multiple social media platforms instead of just one. Here are some examples of cross-platform advertising strategies you can explore:
- Creating a Facebook ad campaign / Facebook marketplace advertising
- Building a sales funnel on Twitter
- Utilizing the power of Instagram and TikTok influencer marketing and appealing to followers of famous individuals
- Running paid ads on Google and several social media platforms
- Using engaging content to reel in potential clients
Related articles on TikTok dropshipping
Conclusion: Is TikTok Dropshipping the Most Profitable Online Business?
TikTok dropshipping is definitely profitable, but it is certainly not the most profitable online business. Aside from the fact that it's a very competitive and saturated industry, it also relies heavily on paid traffic to generate sales. Paid traffic is expensive and could eat up your hard-earned money if you fail to consistently sell your products. Simply put, you're practically risking your money for potential returns that aren't even guaranteed at all.
You also have to consider that with dropshipping, you never actually touch the product. While this might sound enticing for any aspiring dropshipper, reality sets in quickly once you realize that this means you won't be able to ensure that your customers are receiving high quality products, or even getting what they ordered in the first place.
To make matters worse, dropshipping is a business model anyone can just do, which inevitably leads to market saturation. Even if you come up with a winning product that sells, your dropshipping business might stay profitable for 2 to 3 months at best due to other stores copying your product or even making a better version of it. As discouraging as it may be, dropshipping is a business model that's risky, precarious, and unpredictable.
Local lead generation, on the other hand, is an online business that I would personally recommend because of how profitable and sustainable it is. I've created 6-figure businesses with dropshipping and many other online businesses, but local lead generation will always be my #1 recommendation.
Unlike dropshipping, where almost every product known to man has already been explored, local lead generation isn't saturated and competitive because each city has 50 to 100 niches you can tap and make money with. It's also a business model that cannot be easily duplicated, making it almost impossible to become saturated quickly.
You're also not at the mercy of paying a lot of money for advertising. With local lead generation, your website generates organic web traffic through the use of search engine optimization (SEO), which is the process of optimizing your website in accordance with Google's complex algorithm.
The best part about local lead generation is it's a sustainable business model that has the potential to become passive even after 5 years. To this day, I have websites from 2014 that still make me over $2000 per month and I barely even touch them.
If the idea of attaining financial freedom and stability sounds like an excellent idea to you, check out my local lead generation course and I'll show you how you can get started.
