7 Dropshipping Trends & Solutions You Should Be Aware of in 2022 and Beyond

Dropshipping is one of the hottest trends in ecommerce today, and it’s easy to see why. For most entrepreneurs, starting your own business can seem like a daunting and expensive proposition. But with dropshipping, you don’t have to deal with any of that—you simply stock inventory in an online store and sell it to customers through your site.

According to a survey by Statista, dropshipping’s market size value is projected to grow to more than $470 billion between 2021 and 2026. This means there are plenty of opportunities to make money with dropshipping.

If you’re looking to get into the dropshipping business, you need to be aware of the trends that will shape the industry over the next few years. This will help you keep an eye on what the future might hold for dropshipping and how you can adapt your strategies accordingly.

What Is Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a business model where an online retailer doesn’t keep goods in stock. Unlike traditional ecommerce retailers, dropshippers don’t actually carry any inventory. Instead, when a product is sold via their online store, they purchase it from a third party and have it shipped directly to their customer.

Because dropshipping allows merchants to operate without the high upfront costs of stocking inventory, it became one of the sellers’ favorite methods for selling online. As showcased in the statistics by Shift4Shop, dropshipping is the fulfillment model of closely 33% of online sellers and stores.

The best part? It doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming to manage the process of finding, buying, and shipping products to your customers. By integrating better solutions into your dropshipping business model, you can improve the customer experience and save yourself time so you can focus on growing your business in other ways.

Is Dropshipping Good for Your Business

Like other business models, dropshipping comes with various advantages and disadvantages. It’s great for business startups since you can run it from a computer at home. But on some dropshipping platforms, you won’t be able to integrate your own store.

For instance, some ecommerce solutions only allow users to manage existing product inventories. These kinds of solutions aren’t necessarily bad—it all depends on what your business goals are.

Another common problem with dropshipping is it can be hard to figure out which products will sell best and which products have sustainable demand. With this, online project management tools will become increasingly important for business owners who want their dropship businesses to grow over time.

How Online Project Management Tools Help with Your Dropshipping Business

Online project management tools can help you do dropshipping in a more effective way. There are many dropshippers out there who get caught up too much with running their online store, but online project management tools can give them more time on marketing their business or creating more products for their store. This is just one of the many uses of online project management tools to boost your dropshipping business.

What You Need to Know About Dropshipping in 2022 and Beyond

When it comes to dropshipping, there’s a lot to know. With that being said, here are 7 trends you should be aware of!

1. Post-Pandemic Rise of Dropshipping and Ecommerce

In the post-pandemic future, shoppers may appreciate not having to wait in line at a local store. Instead, they can simply order what they need from their computer or phone. Dropshipping gives them that convenience. As this business model becomes easier and more popular, you’ll see more businesses take advantage of it over traditional retail models.

2. Optimization for Mobile Phones

As mobile phones become more advanced, consumers will likely be spending even more time on their phones. This means that businesses with apps should take special care to optimize them for a mobile experience. Designers should think about how users interact with their app on smaller screens, what information is most important to them, and how they’ll navigate through multiple pages on their phone versus a desktop computer.

3. Incorporation of Automation

Automation has been a popular trend among dropshippers. In fact, a report from Ecommerce Platforms revealed that about 27% of online retailers have adopted dropshipping, and automation will be used by 99% of all dropshippers by the end of 2022.

The most popular example is through AliExpress. Basically, sellers send their products to the platform, which then stores them and ships orders out to customers at a cheaper rate than dropshippers themselves can manage on their own.

4. Finding Hot Products to Sell in 2022 and Beyond

Over the years, the best niches for dropshipping were electronics, pet supplies, food items, clothing, and accessories. If you’re looking to expand your existing product selection, you should keep an eye out for those types of products going forward.  

On the other hand, you should also be keen on new categories as they become popular with consumers. As new technologies are developed and released into the market, it's likely there will be a new wave of interest around them.

For example, virtual reality wasn’t the big news in 2016 that experts predicted. However, it's likely we'll see a resurgence in interest in VR in the coming years as prices drop and more content is created to support VR devices. This could mean a whole new category of products to sell online.

5. Chatbots and Private Messages

Chatbots will only become more prominent as time goes on, so now is a good time to think about how your dropshipping business will respond to them. Chatbots can be deployed on any platform that allows for contact via private message, including Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Twitter and Instagram DMs. So, make sure you’re active on these platforms.

6. Focus on Marketing

The best dropshipping products are ones that have been proven to sell well. That’s why marketing is so important—it’s easier to get your first sale if you have a large audience even if you’re not selling on huge ecommerce platforms.

To market your dropshipping products well, look for niche communities and even social media channels that are centered around your product category. For example, Instagram has become a great place for online sellers to build their brands by sharing photos with their followers.

The key is to come up with an effective brand story, engage with people, and cultivate relationships. At its core, dropshipping isn't much different from traditional retail when it comes to marketing techniques!

7. New and Emerging Brands

As ecommerce becomes increasingly saturated, more emerging brands will be competing for your customer’s attention. And with so many new brands making it big, you’ll have to work even harder to stand out from the crowd.

The best way to succeed is to use niche-focused dropshipping websites that cater to a certain type of customer by offering them unique products they can’t find anywhere else. You also need to become an expert in one specific niche and offer customers a curated selection of products they love. Most importantly, you should make sure they feel like they’re part of something exclusive by making their experience as personal as possible.

The Future of Dropshipping

So, what’s next for dropshipping? Experts predict several major changes to ecommerce as a whole will affect dropshippers. From changing consumer attitudes to increased competition, you will find many factors that will shape dropshipping moving forward.

To succeed as a dropshipper in 2022 and beyond, remember the trends presented in this article and understand how these trends and solutions will affect your business in the long run.