Dropshipping has really taken off in recent years, with more than 1 million dropshippers worldwide and over 140,000 dropshippers now trading in the U.K. alone. It’s an accessible and affordable alternative to starting up a standard e-commerce business, but it’s not without its drawbacks.

Profit margins are often small, and there are intense levels of competition in the leading dropshipping niches – like apparel and beauty items. As a result, savvy sellers are starting to turn towards high-ticket dropshipping, which focuses on selling higher-priced, more luxurious items.

The benefits are numerous, including bigger profits per sale and far fewer customer service issues to worry about. It’s often more appealing and rewarding than standard dropshipping, with potential for rapid growth and success.

However, if it was as simple as it sounds, everyone would be doing it. In reality, high-ticket dropshipping demands a specific approach. You have to put a lot of work into identifying the prime high value dropshipping products to sell and suppliers to buy from, while also investing heavily in customer support and branding.

If it sounds like the kind of e-commerce path you’d like to tread, this guide is here to help. Below, we’ll break down all you need to kick off your high-ticket dropshipping business, including expert insider advice and step-by-step instructions.

What Is High Ticket Dropshipping?

Before we dig into the details of high-ticket dropshipping, it’s important to define dropshipping.

First, a quick definition of dropshipping. Dropshipping is a popular and relatively new e-commerce model, in which you sell products to customers without actually needing to buy, store, make, maintain, or manage those products.

Here’s how it works: you find a supplier who can provide the items you want to sell. Then, you advertise those products via your online store and other sales channels. A customer comes along and places an order. You pass that order on to your supplier, who handles fulfilment and delivery. 

You just have to ensure that the right product(s) arrive on time and keep the customer happy, while pocketing a profit on every sale. In other words, as a dropshipper, you’re basically the “middle man” between customers and suppliers.

Moving on to high-ticket dropshipping, this is basically the same concept outlined above, but with a focus on so-called “high-ticket items.” High-ticket items are those of substantial value (from $1000 and beyond), including fire pits, saunas, fireplaces, and gym equipment.

Here’s an example to see how the two types differ. With standard dropshipping, you might buy and sell cheap handbags, buying each one for £20 and selling them for £30 (£10 profit per sale). With high ticket e Commerce, you could buy a luxury bag for £500 and sell it for £800, for example (£300 profit).

This way, you can make significantly more money for every item sold. Better still, you don’t have to worry quite as much about drawing in a gigantic audience and making dozens or hundreds of sales daily. Even a single sale per day can be enough for a very impressive revenue stream.

Advantages and Disadvantages

There are pros and cons to every kind of e-commerce business model, and high-ticket dropshipping is no different. Here are some of its plus points and its drawbacks:

Pros

• Higher Profit Margins: As shown in the example above, you can make a lot of money for every high-ticket item sold. To generate a serious profit, you may only need to sell a small number of items weekly or monthly, as opposed to much greater quantities in regular dropshipping.

• Less Competition: Competition in e-commerce is intense, and many niches and markets are saturated, with so many stores competing with one another. In high-ticket niches, there’s less competition overall – that means fewer rivals for you to worry about. 

• Better Quality of Customer: The high prices and high-end, luxury nature of high-ticket items make them appeal to a specific crowd. People buying these items tend to be more discerning and, in theory, less likely to make complaints, return items, or attempt tricks and scams.

Cons

• Requires Excellent Customer Service: You can’t run a successful high-ticket dropshipping business without solid customer support. Customers will frequently want to ask questions before placing an order and expect instant, helpful responses to their messages.

• Higher Upfront Costs: Naturally, high-ticket dropshipping also demands more financial investment. You’ll have to spend more per item, as well as sizable investment in branding and marketing to make your mark and attract initial customers.

• Tougher to Make Sales: While each high-ticket sale is much more valuable than a standard dropshipping sale, they’re also a lot harder to make. You have to convince customers to invest a lot of cash in the products you have to sell, which can require considerable time and effort.

Setting Up Your High Ticket Dropshipping Business 

By this point, you might be interested in starting your own high-ticket dropshipping business. If so, there are a few crucial steps before you can start making sales and bringing in some cash.

Choosing a Niche

Apparel, accessories, home appliances, home decor, automotive, sports equipment – there are lots of potential niches to choose from when setting up a high-ticket e-commerce store. Your first step should be to research those niches and choose one that seems like a good fit for you.

There’s no “best answer” when picking a niche. They’re all different and all have their benefits. Some products and niches tend to sell better than others, but that also tends to make them more competitive and harder to break into. Less popular niches have less competition, but may be trickier to make sales.

It’s about weighing up the pros and cons to identify the ideal niche. Many experts also recommend picking a niche you’re knowledgeable and passionate about, as that’ll provide motivation, as well as aiding you in connecting with your target customers.

Research trends and market demand to learn more about niches, and make use of tools, like Google Trends, to see which are the most active and enticing. Alternatively, sign up for a proven program, like High Ticket, to learn all about picking the perfect niche and making the most profit.

Finding High Ticket Products to Sell

With your niche selected, you then have to pick some high ticket items to sell. Let’s say you decided to focus on entertainment items, for example, you might then choose to specialize in something like home cinema systems, projectors, smart watches, or digital cameras.

Again, this is a lot like the previous stage of selecting your niche. It’s best to do your research, focus on trending, popular products that will be easier to sell, and look at items you know a lot about, to help you build authority and trust among your audience.

You’ll also need to find suppliers who can provide the products you want, which we’ll look at in further detail a little later on.

Building Your Online Store 

It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling high-ticket jewellery or affordable everyday items – if you want to succeed in dropshipping, you’ll need an online store to market your products and accept orders from your customers. 

Creating a Professional Website

A professional, user-friendly online store is a must-have in high-ticket dropshipping. People won’t want to buy fancy or luxury items from a store that looks ugly or unprofessional. In fact, over 40% say they’d never buy from a poorly-designed site.

Fortunately, even if you have next to no experience in site design, that’s not a problem. Modern e-commerce platforms like Shopify come with easy-to-use store builders, letting you create a professional-looking store in a matter of hours.

You can do it all yourself, or hire a designer to help out. Alternatively, you can also score a custom-designed and built website when you join The High Ticket Program. 

Either way, remember to focus on making a strong first impression. As a provider of high-ticket goods, your store needs to be classy, elegant, and inviting, with high-quality images, fluid navigation, and detailed product pages, with lots of photos and well-written descriptions. 

How does dropshipping work on Shopify? Find out from our guide.  

Optimizing for SEO and User Experience

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will help your store appear higher in Google search rankings. That means more clicks, more traffic, and hopefully, more sales.

Again, this can seem complicated if you’ve got little to no experience, but there are many guides and resources to help you learn the basics of SEO and implement impactful changes to your site. 

Making sure your store is secure, speedy, and loads well on mobile are all good starting points. From there, you can focus more on content and keywords, perhaps publishing blog articles and posts to draw more traffic to your domain.

Sourcing Your Products 

As alluded to earlier on, product selection is perhaps the single most important part of high-ticket dropshipping – and dropshipping in general, for that matter. Pick the wrong products, and you may struggle to sell anything at all. Pick the right products, however, and you’ll find it much easier to make sales and serious profits. 

Finding Reliable Suppliers 

Once you’ve picked some products you want to sell, you have to find suppliers who can provide those products. There are two main factors to focus on here – quality and reliability. 

You need to ensure that the products you source and provide to your customers are of high quality, especially in the high-ticket field, as expectations are high and buyers won’t settle for sub-standard items.

You also need to ensure your chosen suppliers are reliable and capable of providing the items you need in sufficient quantities to meet demand, as well as being able to safely and swiftly package and deliver those items when orders come through.

Check out reviews and guides of leading suppliers to find those you can trust, and review leading platforms like Alibaba or niche-specific directories to narrow the search. The High Ticket Program can also provide invaluable insight into selecting the right suppliers.

Managing Supplier Relationships

Naturally, when running an e-commerce business or online store, a lot of the focus is on building and maintaining relationships with your customers. But you can’t neglect your suppliers, either. It can be just as important to have satisfying and strong bonds with them, as well.

Communication is key here. Reach out to your suppliers regularly to keep them informed of your needs and situation as it evolves. Establish clear agreements and understanding in regard to shipping times, return policies, and warranties, too.

Marketing Your High Ticket Dropshipping Store 

You can’t underestimate the importance of marketing for any kind of e-commerce business, especially a high-ticket dropshipping store. If people don’t know about your store and the products you’ve got to offer, you’ll struggle to attract any attention, generate leads, and make sales. But with strong marketing, you can build a powerful, profitable brand.

Building a Brand

To attract high-end customers, your brand needs to be impactful and attractive. It needs to exude a certain aura of authority and trust, and that all begins with the building blocks of your brand – like your business name, logo, and voice.

Don’t rush through any of these early stages, like choosing your business name. Take your time, look to competitors for inspiration, and build your brand, bit by bit, to be as strong and engaging as it can be. 

Think about colour schemes for your branding materials, for example, as well as the design of your site and store, and the story you want to tell in order to draw customers in and persuade them to buy from you, over your rivals.

Leveraging Digital Marketing Channels

With over 70% of customers preferring to shop on more than one channel, you can’t limit yourself to a single platform in this day and age.

Multi-channel marketing is the way to go. With this method, you can advertise your brand and products on lots of different platforms, like social media sites (Instagram, for instance), Google Ads, email campaigns, and so on.

Content marketing and influencer marketing, too, can be invaluable in high-ticket dropshipping for raising awareness and building authority. Invest in as many relevant channels as you’re able to afford and manage, in order to maximise your marketing scope and bring in the biggest possible crowd.

Customer Service and Support 

We’ve spoken numerous times throughout this guide about the importance of customer service in high-ticket dropshipping. It’s something that demands particular investment and attention. Read on to learn why and how.

Providing Exceptional Customer Service

Typically, people are much more discerning and cautious when buying high-ticket items compared to lower-priced products. These items cost a lot more, after all, and buyers won’t want to part with such amounts of money without being sure in their decisions. 

Often, they’ll reach out to brands and stores, asking for more details about products or the order process. That’s why you need strong, real-time support systems in place to respond to their messages and answer their inquiries right away.

Good quality customer service helps to build up levels of trust and connections with your customers. This not only makes them more likely to buy items from you now, but also improves your chances of those customers coming back again in the future, and recommending your store to others.

Don’t under-invest in this area. Ensure you have strong service systems in place, like live chat, AI help bots, and friendly, trained support staff. Try to offer clear, honest communication, rapid responses, and personalized levels of support to make each customer feel valued and cared for.

Handling Returns and Refunds

In an ideal world, you’d never have to worry about items being returned. Every customer would be satisfied with what they ordered, and every order would net you a nice profit.

Unfortunately, this is the real world. And in the real world, people aren’t always totally satisfied with the items they receive. In fact, according to Shopify’s own statistics, around 14.5% of all sales end up being returned. In 2023, that added up to more than $740 billion worth of items!

Fortunately, one of the advantages of high-ticket dropshipping is that it tends to have a lower rate of returns. But “low” isn’t the same as “zero.” Every now and then, you’ll almost certainly have to handle a customer who wants to send something back for a full refund.

Be ready for that. Establish a clear return and refund policy and make sure it’s visible on your site for customers to read and understand. When handling returns, try to follow best practices, like maintaining a courteous and professional attitude.

Additionally, to minimise losses, look for ways to reduce your returns rate. Provide lots of photos and even videos of your products, to avoid any confusion for customers ordering them, and offer alternatives like store credit or partial refunds instead of full-on returns.

Conclusion: Kick-Start Your High-Ticket Dropshipping Business Today

Bigger profits, less competition – without a doubt, high-ticket dropshipping is an appealing proposition, with lots of advantages. If you feel like regular dropshipping is just too impenetrable right now due to intense competition, or you’d prefer to focus on marketing and branding, making fewer sales for greater profits, this could be the right choice for you.

High Ticket is here to help! As experts in online high-ticket sales, we’ve already helped more than 2,000 satisfied sellers build thriving high-ticket e-commerce businesses with our proven, top-rated program. We’d love to do the same for you. All it takes to get the ball rolling is a single message. Reach out to our team today and start your journey to high-ticket dropshipping success.