How to create a dropshipping website

You can create a dropshipping website without ever handling stock, because the supplier stores and ships the products for you. You choose a supplier, register a domain and build an online shop on a platform that works with that supplier. Then you add the products at your own prices, set up payments and delivery information, and test the shop before you launch. If you sell plant pots at yourplantpots.co.uk, for example, you run the shop and the customer service, and your supplier packs and posts the orders.

How dropshipping works

In dropshipping, each order travels from your shop to your supplier. A customer orders a plant pot and pays for it on yourplantpots.co.uk, the order goes to your supplier, and the supplier packs the pot and sends it straight to the customer. What you earn is the difference between your price and what the supplier charges you.

That difference is your margin, and the supplier's charge includes delivery. If you sell a pot for £20 and your supplier charges you £11 including delivery, £9 is left. Payment fees and your other costs come out of those £9.

The customer bought from you, so the customer service stays with you. When a parcel is late, a pot arrives broken or someone wants to return an order, they'll ask you rather than the supplier, and how well you can answer depends on the supplier you've chosen.

How to choose a dropshipping supplier

Before you look for a supplier, pick a narrow niche you know well, plant pots rather than homeware in general, and a small range you can test before you add more. A supplier that suits your shop does well on these points:

• Products and quality: the catalogue fits your target audience, and the quality is good enough to sell under your shop's name.
• Delivery to the UK: the supplier tells you where the products ship from, what delivery costs and how long it takes. High delivery costs and long waits put customers off at the checkout.
• Fees: any subscription fees, handling or packaging charges and commissions still leave you a margin.
• Returns and faulty items: the supplier has clear terms for returns, exchanges, faulty items and lost parcels, which matters because your customers will expect an answer from you.
• Support: the supplier replies quickly, by live chat for example.

A sample sent to your own address shows you the quality, the packaging and the delivery time your customers will get, so it's worth ordering one before you list a product. What other sellers say about the supplier tells you more while you wait.

Dropshipping suppliers to compare

Some services are suppliers themselves, while others connect your shop to many suppliers.

If you sell your own designs, start with Printful. Print-on-demand means a product is only printed with your design once a customer has ordered it, so you don't print anything up front. If you resell existing products, start with Spocket, CJdropshipping or SaleHoo. And if you want to sell products from AliExpress, an app such as DSers lets you compare supplier options for a product and sends each order to the right supplier.

Whichever service you use, check in its catalogue where a product ships from before you add it to your shop. Delivery from abroad can cost your customer extra: Printful, for example, says that an order shipped from a facility in another region may come with handling or customs fees on delivery.

How to build a dropshipping website step by step

Once you've found a supplier, you build the shop step by step, from its address to its first visitors.

Step 1: Register a domain for your shop

Your domain is your shop's address, like yourplantpots.co.uk. It can be your brand or business name, or it can describe what you sell, as long as it's short and easy to spell. Try to come up with a business name before you pick the domain, so your shop's name and domain match.

The extension matters too. If you sell in the UK, we recommend a .co.uk or .uk as your first choice, because a country-code extension builds trust with local customers. If you plan to sell abroad as well, register the .com too, the extension international customers recognise most. Of our other domain extensions, .shop tells customers you're open for business, and .shop or .online works well when your first choice is taken. You can also register one alongside your .co.uk. Once you've picked a name, register a domain with it before someone else does.

Step 2: Choose your ecommerce platform

Your platform is the software your shop runs on, and for a small shop there are two common routes. Before you choose, check which platforms your supplier's app connects to, because the app is what passes new orders on to your supplier.

The first route is a website builder with an online shop. With our Aida AI Website Builder, you tell Aida about your shop in a chat, and Aida builds the pages and the shop for you. The Commerce plan includes secure hosting, and you can upload your supplier's product catalogue to Aida as a CSV file. If your supplier's app doesn't connect to the builder, you forward each order to your supplier yourself, which works for a small range.

The second route is WordPress with WooCommerce. WordPress runs on web hosting, and the WooCommerce plugin turns it into a shop. WooCommerce is open source, so you choose your own payment providers, features and extensions, and you set up the shop yourself on our Hosting for WordPress. It's managed hosting: we update WordPress, your themes and your plugins and test each update first, while you install WooCommerce and build the shop. Supplier apps connect to WooCommerce too: Spocket, for example, has an integration for WooCommerce that imports products into your shop and automates order processing, so you don't copy orders by hand.

Our advice: if you're starting with a small range and want your shop running quickly without installing and setting up shop software yourself, choose a website builder with an online shop. If you plan to import a large catalogue through your supplier's app and have it pass your orders on, choose WordPress with WooCommerce.

Step 3: Design your shop

A clear design helps visitors trust a shop they don't know yet:

• a template in your brand's colours and fonts, with your logo
• products grouped into categories, such as indoor pots and planters on yourplantpots.co.uk
• sharp product photos, from your supplier or from your own samples
• a responsive layout, so the shop works on a phone as well as on a computer
• pages for delivery, returns and contact details, which customers look for before they buy

Step 4: Add your products and connect your supplier

If your supplier has an app for your platform, you import products from its catalogue and the app passes new orders on to the supplier. If there's no app for your platform, you add each product yourself and forward each order to the supplier by hand. Either way, each product page needs:

• a clear title with the words customers search for, SEO-optimised and easy to read
• a full description in your own words rather than the supplier's copy, with sizes, materials and what makes the product worth buying
• a price with your margin, covering the supplier's price, delivery, payment fees and VAT if you're registered

Step 5: Set up payments and delivery

How customers pay depends on your platform. Our online shop takes all major credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Klarna, among other methods. With WooCommerce, you add a payment gateway, a plugin that connects your shop to a payment provider so customers can pay for their order. On either route, your shop also needs an SSL certificate for secure payments: it encrypts the connection, so card details can't be read by anyone in between. Our Commerce plan includes one.

For your delivery page, use your supplier's information to say which areas you deliver to, how long it takes and what it costs, so customers know what to expect before they order.

Step 6: Test, launch and promote your shop

Before you open, place a test order yourself, so you can see that the payment goes through, that you get the order confirmation and that the order reaches your supplier. Once it does, you can publish the shop and start bringing in visitors:

• social media posts and ads where your customers spend time, and partnerships with people your audience follows
• search engine advertising, paid ads that show in the search results when people look for the products you sell
• discount codes and a loyalty programme for customers who come back
• SEO content for ecommerce, such as buying guides for the pots you sell
• affiliate marketing, where other websites earn a commission on the sales they send you
• email marketing to customers who've signed up, with news and offers

Our Commerce plan gives you an online shop with unlimited products and secure payments, and we never take a commission on your sales.

Is dropshipping legal in the UK?

Yes, dropshipping is a legal business model, and you have the same duties as any other online seller in the UK:

• You can start trading straight away, but you must register for Self Assessment with HMRC once you earn more than £1,000 from your shop in a tax year (6 April to 5 April). Most people set up as a sole trader when they're first starting out, and our guide explains how to register as a sole trader.
• You must register for VAT once your taxable turnover goes over £90,000 in a rolling 12 months, or as soon as you expect it to pass £90,000 within the next 30 days alone. Below that, registering is your choice.
• Before customers order, give them your business details, the delivery arrangements and costs, and how they can cancel. They can cancel up to 14 days after their order is delivered, without giving a reason. As they bought from you, a cancelled order comes back to you, so agree with your supplier before you start where returns go and who pays for them, and build the cost of any returns your supplier won't take into your prices.
• Publish a privacy policy. Under UK GDPR, you must tell customers why you collect their personal data, how long you keep it and who you share it with, at the time you collect it.

If your supplier sends products from abroad, read gov.uk's guidance on VAT for goods sold directly to customers in the UK before you set your prices, because it tells you whether you or your customer pays VAT on each order.

If you'd rather not write your policies yourself, Termly scans your website for cookies and generates a privacy policy, a cookie policy and a cookie banner, as well as shipping and return policies.

How much does it cost to start dropshipping?

Starting costs depend on your plan, your supplier and how much you spend on advertising. Your supplier holds the stock, so you don't buy any up front, but a few things still cost you money before your first sale:

• your domain and the platform or plan your shop runs on, though our website builder and hosting plans include a free domain for the first year on selected extensions
• a subscription to a supplier app or directory, if it charges one
• samples of the products you want to sell
• advertising for your launch

Once you're selling, payment fees, returns your supplier won't take and the advertising that brings customers in all eat into your margin. Keep a record of your income and costs from the first day. You'll need records for your tax return anyway, and they show you which products actually make money.

Testing a small range first keeps that risk small. Give your shop its own look and a consistent way of writing, give it time, and use your first sales to learn what your customers want before you add more.

Once you've chosen your niche and your supplier, the name comes next: check that your shop's domain is available.