Dropshipping Q&A: Your Questions Answered

Got questions about dropshipping? You are not alone. In this detailed episode, Mark answers the most common listener questions about the dropshipping model he has been discussing on the show, including sourcing outside of China, running a dropshipping business from another country, handling returns, and overcoming the analysis paralysis that keeps too many aspiring entrepreneurs from ever starting.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

Whether you can dropship products from suppliers outside of China
How to run a dropshipping business from anywhere in the world
The practical approach to handling returns and customer service
Why most customers never actually request returns on low-cost items
How to break free from analysis paralysis and take your first step
The “just in time learning” approach that keeps you moving forward

Episode Summary

This episode is a continuation of Mark's dropshipping series from episodes 143 and 144. Listeners had sent in a new round of questions, and Mark works through each one with his typical straightforward approach.

The first question is whether products have to ship from China. Mark's answer is clear: absolutely not. While the AliExpress-Shopify-Oberlo model he has been describing focuses on Chinese suppliers because the barrier to entry is incredibly low, there are dropshipping suppliers all over the world. You can Google dropshipping sources and find a long list of companies set up specifically for this business model. Even within AliExpress, you can filter for suppliers that ship from within the United States. Mark also points out a more creative approach: leveraging relationships you already have through your day job or industry connections to set up dropshipping arrangements with established suppliers.

The second major question comes from listeners outside the United States wondering if they can run this model. Mark confirms that people are running successful dropshipping businesses from all over the world, including Europe, Canada, Asia, and Australia. The main consideration is managing fees. Currency exchange charges, international transfer fees, and credit card foreign transaction fees all eat into margins. Mark suggests several ways to offset these costs, including using cash-back credit cards, leveraging AliExpress loyalty programs, and simply adjusting your prices to account for the extra fees.

Mark also recommends that regardless of where you are located, you start by targeting customers in the United States. The reasoning is practical: there is a large population of Facebook users with disposable income who are accustomed to making impulse purchases online. Once you have a profitable operation, you can expand to other affluent markets.

The returns question gets a thorough treatment. Mark walks through his actual process: set up a support email, create a returns form, require the customer to describe the problem and provide an order number, then issue a return merchandise authorization. He notes that for items priced under $20, most customers will not bother going through the return process. In over 100 shipments at the time of recording, Mark had received zero return requests and only two customer service inquiries total. His advice for minimizing returns: avoid products with sizing issues like clothing and rings, choose items with high ratings and many positive reviews, and select suppliers with 97% or higher feedback ratings.

The episode closes with a powerful segment on analysis paralysis. Mark shares a conversation with a listener whose only hobby was studying internet marketing. The person had consumed hundreds of hours of content but had never actually started a business. Mark's advice is direct: stop studying and take action. Figure out what you want to accomplish, identify the single next step, learn just enough to complete that step, and do it today. He calls this “just in time learning,” a concept he credits to Jeremy Frandsen.

The underlying message is encouraging but firm: you have permission to mess up. Domain names cost $8. Shopify has a free trial. The risk of starting is far smaller than the cost of staying stuck.

Key Takeaways

Dropshipping is not limited to Chinese suppliers. You can source from anywhere in the world.
You can run a dropshipping business from any country, though you need to account for international fees
Start by targeting customers in affluent countries with high disposable income, especially the United States
Most customers will not return low-cost items if you have a reasonable returns process in place
Choose products with high ratings and suppliers with 97% or higher feedback to minimize service issues
Avoid products with sizing variability like clothing and rings when starting out
Analysis paralysis is often fear of failure in disguise. Give yourself permission to start imperfectly.
Use “just in time learning” to focus only on the next step instead of trying to learn everything first

What's Changed Since This Episode

Mark recorded this episode in mid-2017, and the dropshipping landscape has gone through enormous changes since then. The fundamental model still works, but the specific tools, platforms, and competitive dynamics are very different.

The most significant change is that Oberlo, the Shopify plugin Mark references repeatedly, no longer exists. Shopify shut down Oberlo in June 2022. The recommended replacement is DSers, which integrates with AliExpress in a similar way and is now the official AliExpress dropshipping partner for Shopify. Other alternatives include Spocket, which focuses on US and EU suppliers with faster shipping times, and CJ Dropshipping.

Customer expectations for shipping speed have risen dramatically. In 2017, buyers were more tolerant of 2-4 week shipping from China. In 2026, Amazon Prime has conditioned consumers to expect delivery within days. This means dropshipping from Chinese suppliers to US customers with standard AliExpress shipping is much harder to pull off without customer complaints. Successful dropshippers now prioritize suppliers with US or EU warehouses, or they use fulfillment services that pre-stock inventory closer to the customer.

New platforms have created additional dropshipping opportunities. TikTok Shop launched in the US in 2023 and has become a major channel for product discovery and direct sales. Facebook Marketplace allows shipped product listings. Amazon FBA, while not traditional dropshipping, offers a low-inventory model through their fulfillment network that many former dropshippers have migrated to.

AI product research tools have replaced much of the manual searching Mark describes. Tools like Sell The Trend, Ecomhunt, and Minea use AI to identify trending products across platforms, analyze competitor ads, and predict product viability before you invest in listing them. This dramatically reduces the trial-and-error aspect of product selection.

Mark's advice about analysis paralysis has aged perfectly. If anything, there are more resources and lower barriers to entry in 2026 than there were in 2017. The challenge is not lack of information. It is taking that first step. That has not changed one bit.

Full Episode Transcript

This episode includes a complete transcript below. Mark answers listener questions about dropshipping sourcing, international operations, returns handling, and analysis paralysis in detail.

This week I want to talk to you a little bit about this drop-shipping thing one more time. We've had a few more really important and intelligent frequently asked questions come in that I want to answer for you. If you're on the fence about wanting to mess around with drop-shipping but you have these few nagging questions, I want to make sure that we get those answered for you.

Before we do that, I have a favor to ask you. On my website I've been working on the re-do of that slowly but surely over the last year and that's almost complete. One of the things that I need to add there and on the sales page for my upcoming courses is some testimonials.

For the courses, most of the testimonials will come from people who have actually taken the course, but when you first start a course you need something to put on there. So, I have a request for you. If I have helped you in some way, if you've enjoyed the podcast, if I've given you ideas that have helped you in your business, if we've interacted in some way, if you've used my material in a way that helped you in your business, I would really appreciate it if you would go to LateNightIM.com/testimonial and leave a comment for me that I can use on one of these websites that will help people understand that I'm a good guy. That would make me really happy if you take a few minutes to do that.

A Quick Drop-Shipping Recap

In case you're just joining the show for the very first time, in Episode 143 and 144 we've been talking about drop-shipping. The model that we've been talking about is a model where you source products from AliExpress and you use software like Shopify and Oberlo. You source the products from China and you advertise them, probably on Facebook or other places like Facebook, Instagram and so forth.

You cause people to impulse buy things that they didn't know ahead of time that they really needed but once they saw your ad on Facebook they knew for sure that they just had to have that item. They pay you for the item and then you use the money that they gave you to drop-ship the product to them and you keep the profits to pay for your ads and put some money in your pocket.

That's how this sort of drop-shipping model works.

There are some more questions that people asked that keep them from getting started…

Do Products Have to Ship From China for this to Work?

One of the questions that people ask is, “Can I get my products from somewhere other than AliExpress? I'm not all that comfortable with drop-shipping from China, I don't want to do that and I don't want products from China. I want to drop-ship from the United States,” or Germany, or wherever, “because that's the kind of drop-shipping operation that I want to have.”

Yes, absolutely, you can drop-ship from anywhere. If you Google dropshippers, drop shipping sources, or places that you can drop ship from, you will get an amazingly long list of all of these different drop-shipping companies that you can use. Unlike AliExpress that sell directly to retail, some of them only do drop-shipping and are set up for that sort of thing. So there are lots of options outside of AliExpress.

The only reason that I focus so much on AliExpress in these particular examples is that it is super ridiculously dead simple and easy to get started, because Shopify, Oberlo, and AliExpress all work together very easily. All of the approval processes and barriers to entry are incredibly low. It's just really easy for someone to get started with a limited amount of experience.

So, yes, there are other sources for drop-shipping and I encourage you to check into that. As a matter of fact, if it's just the China piece that is bothering you and you're wondering about United States, even AliExpress has suppliers that ship from inside the United States.

You can check that out when you're searching for products to promote on your site inside of AliExpress, one of the limits that you can place on the search is you can tell it to only show suppliers that ship from the United States. That's another way that you can do that.

Let me also say that I think that's a limiting belief. The world is getting smaller all the time. Most of the manufacturing in the world happens in China anyway, so even if you're drop-shipping from the United States, 9 times out of 10 your products are made in China or in the Far East somewhere.

One way that we see drop-shipping success that is also outside of this model is you may have some special knowledge about some particular area of expertise that you have because of your day job. Let's say that you work for a swimming pool company and because of that you have special relationships with swimming pool filter manufacturers.

Your idea is you want to talk to those buddies that you've been working with for the last 20 years at the filter supply company and you want to create a drop-shipping website specifically for swimming pool filters that leverages your special relationships that you've built with some particular supplier and you want to drop-ship their products.

You can go to lunch with those guys and make an arrangement. That's great and I think that's another drop-shipping model. It's not as broadly applicable to everyone because it relies on your particular life experience, but those opportunities are out there as well.

Can I Do Drop-Shipping if I'm not in the United States?

There are two questions buried in this. One is can I have a business that is located in another country and run it from there? The answer is yes, absolutely. People that are doing this drop-shipping model are doing it from anywhere in the world, quite literally.

The complexity is only that when you're dealing with AliExpress, getting money back and forth from Shopify and PayPal, as most of you who live in other countries know, there are charges that are associated with that. If you're using a credit card with AliExpress, you may have foreign currency exchange fees. You certainly will have fees when you bring money back into your home country.

Can this work? Absolutely. In fact, a huge number of the people that are working in dropshipping are working from outside the United States. Particularly, there are a bunch of people in Europe and Canada, but also people in Asia and Australia, all over the world really. This totally can be done, it's just an issue of managing fees.

You can also look at AliExpress loyalty programs and the AliExpress affiliate program. There are ways that you can leverage programs to get cash back and improve your margins on your purchases from AliExpress.

Start Off Targeting Areas with Money to Spend

The advice that I hear is that the best place to start your drop-shipping business is actually in the United States, to actually market to the United States. That has to do with the fact that there is a lot of money to be had in the United States, it's an affluent country, there's a lot of Facebook users in the United States, and there is a lot of consumption.

I recommend that you start your drop-shipping business in the United States and fan out from there. Can you start in Australia or some other highly developed country with a high standard of living and lots of expendable income? Absolutely.

Handling Returns and Customer Service in Drop-Shipping

People worry that they're going to sell something and someone is going to return it or there is going to be a lot of customer service burden.

With regard to customer service, the simple thing to do is to set up a support email for your store. If your store is called Bubba's Yellow Cameras, you would set up an email called [email protected]. Then you would set up a form on your Shopify website that says, “If you need our help, please fill out this form.”

The question is what do you do about returns. You just sold a $20 product, the customer gets it and they don't like it. They're going to send an email to your support. The very reasonable thing that you're going to do is say, “Sorry you had this problem. We deeply regret it. Please describe the nature of the problem and we will issue you a return merchandise authorization number.”

A certain number of people when they get your answer that you need more information are going to look at that and say, “I'm not dealing with this over an item that I paid $17.95 for,” and they're going to throw the thing in the trash.

The thing is, for a $14 item or a $20 item, most people aren't going to mess with this.

In fact, having shipped over 100 items now out of my store, I've not had one single return ever. Not one. Not even a request for a return. I've had one customer service question about how to use a product, and one inquiry about shipping times. That's it.

I think a lot of that has to do with selecting really good suppliers. Stay away from products that generate a lot of returns, like clothing with unpredictable sizing and rings that are hard to fit. Pick products with lots of positive reviews and pick suppliers with a very high rating, 97% or higher.

The Analysis Paralysis of Getting Started

I keep hearing from people who are almost paralyzed. They know what they want to do, they feel that feeling that they want to get started, but there's a list of things that are keeping them from getting started.

I recently had a conversation with a listener. I said, “What hobbies do you have?” He said, “My hobbies are learning about internet marketing. I don't do anything else. I listen to podcasts and I'm churning on this stuff and just gobbling up all of this information.”

I think sometimes you just have to start. You have to ask yourself why is it that you haven't started. Many times the reason that you haven't started is fear of failure.

I promise you that you're not going to do it right the first time. I've been doing this stuff for a long time and I never do anything right the first time. It's okay. I give you permission to mess up. Especially on something like drop-shipping or starting a website, there's just not that much at risk.

Figure it out as you go. Everybody I know that is successful, the way they got there was by taking bold action. You are no exception. You have to get out there and go do stuff.

If you're going to have a successful business online, you're going to have to add some value. All of the marketing tactics in the world are not going to matter if you aren't creating some value.

I think the best business objective is fundamentally to help people profitably. Pat Flynn is helping people profitably by helping people create passive income. Ray Edwards is helping people grow their business by teaching them copywriting. Michael Stelzner is helping people stay on top of social media.

You need to be able to say, “I am doing this thing and it's helping people.”

If you want to get unstuck, you have to stop studying everything and take action. Take action with a purpose. Then employ something that I learned from Jeremy Frandsen called ‘just in time learning.' If you've decided you're going to help people by teaching them woodworking and you need a website, your next step is to register a domain name. There's a podcast episode about that. Listen to it, register the domain, and move on to the next step.

Only worry about what the next critical path action is. If you do that over and over again, you can eat that elephant one bite at a time and be incredibly successful over time.

I hope that helps you and I hope you have an absolutely fantastic week.

Key Resources for Dropshipping

Shopify — e-commerce platform for building your store
AliExpress — product sourcing marketplace
Smart Passive Income (Pat Flynn)
Ray Edwards — copywriting educator
Social Media Examiner
HelpScout — customer support platform
LNIM093 — How To Choose A Domain Name

Related Episodes

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LNIM 145 Transcript: Answering More Dropshipping Questions [LNIM145]