Because the profit margins of dropshipping is super low you have to reduce your risk of returns to avoid literally losing money and possibly your Amazon account too.  So here's the 5 items you want to avoid listing for dropshipping:

Glass ANYTHING.

Drinking glasses, glass candle jars, table top glass decor… anything with glass. Personally I would add other fragile items to this as well. The reason for this is breakage. Even if the dropshipper promises they pack them well, it’s too risky because you can’t control the mail carrier and you equally can’t control if the buyer drops it on their floor after opening the parcel. Either way the buyer is going to claim it is defective and send it back.

Fashion Shoes.

Good Lord, I can’t explain how frustrating shoes can be. When we had our physical stores open we would sell an absolute ton of womens shoes, especially before Christmas…. And then we would get tons of them back in January. Shoes are something that people have to try on, however they love to buy them as gifts… and the gift never seems to fit unless it’s a famous brand (Nike, Puma, etc).

If you truly want to sell footwear you may want to instead consider items like Sandals or Slippers that come in easy-to-understand sizes, such as "Medium 7/8".

Large Furniture

People love home goods and I am no exception. I can honestly say I have bought an utter ton of furniture off Amazon and I have been super happy with it however I know furniture has a high return-rate in addition to costing a fortune to ship.

The problem with furniture ranges from essential parts missing from the box to item arriving scratched or dented to the buyer having to idea how to assemble it. I once bought a $900 Amazon Warehouse “New” returned patio umbrella. The previous buyer stole the shade part off of it and returned just the pole, so I returned it too.

With that being said, thankfully I have a husband who is really good at building (and rigging) things missing pieces so, for the most part, it doesn’t matter to us if it is missing a pack of screws but other people are less handy.

Items that Compete with Amazon Basics

Lets keep it real: as much as I hate to admit this, Amazon Basics are overall outstanding AND super cheap. It is damn near impossible to compete with a better AND cheaper product unless the product you are having dropshipped is something special. For example, the Amazon Basics tape holder is friggin awesome (we have 5 of them in our warehouse). They’re plain, black, say Amazon Basics on them and cost something like $6 with free shipping. If you are looking to dropship plain, black tape holders for $12 each, nobody is ever going to buy it. However if the tape holder you are listing is pink and covered in sequins or clear with a neon light on the inside you are sure to get some hits.

As a rule of thumb, unless it’s super-mega-cheap or unique it’s most likely going to get lost in the Amazon Sea of similar listings.

China Clothing, Especially Dresses

99% of China brands run super, super tiny versus USA sizing which is going to result in a LOT of returns. China sizing general runs 2-3x smaller than the same size in the USA. For example, if the dress from China says Womens size XL it is likely going to fit a USA size Medium or Small. This causes a lot of confusion for buyers.  

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