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Have you ever wondered what the most popular dropshipping niches are? Or the best markets for dropshippers? Well, in this article, we're going to share just that. That's right. The best niches. The best markets. By the end of this post, you’ll discover: The niches fueling success in the markets generating the most sales. Specific products that have sold huge in different countries. Trends and patterns that you can apply to your marketing campaigns and product strategy. Some counterintuitive best-sellers that will get you thinking about how to capitalize on opportunities other store owners in the dropshipping market might be missing. Time for a trip around the globe! Warning! Data Coming Your Way Before we dive in, a couple notes about the data in here. All calculations were for the calendar year of 2018 – specifically, January 1 to December 31. There are lots of product categories inside Oberlo – 24 to be exact. They range from the huge revenue-generators, like “Women’s Clothing & Accessories” and “Watches,” to slightly more obscure ones, like “Furniture” and “Weddings & Events.” Today, we’re only looking at the big boys. You’ll get plenty of context about how things compare to each other, but we won’t be getting into raw totals of orders or gross merchandise value (GMV). “GMV" refers to the total cost that Oberlo merchants paid to suppliers. The total profit on $1,000 worth of GMV could vary depending on a number of factors – pricing strategy, shipping methods, and so on. But in general, high GMV means high revenue. Global Trends We’re going to look at our Top 10 markets in just a sec, but let’s set the table by seeing how different niches stack up across the entire world: There are a couple of things to take note of here, as they’ll be popping up later on, as well: "Women’s Clothing & Accessories" is the rockstar category. It generates the most orders and the biggest GMV for Oberlo users. Meanwhile, in a trend we’ll see on the country level, as well, "Men’s Clothing & Accessories" is not one of the top categories for generating orders, but is a top category when it comes to GMV. "Jewelry and Accessories" is nearly always at the top of the orders list, but not the GMV list. This shows that people like buying lots of "Jewelry and Accessories" – but that those products usually don’t cost much money. Okay, so that’s how things look on the global level. Now let’s look at our top 10 dropshipping markets. 1. United States The US is by far the biggest market for Oberlo store owners. Here, for example, is a chart showing 2018 orders from the US compared to everywhere else: Yeah, it's a powerhouse. So let's take a closer look. Headline: The Women’s Clothing & Accessories category in the US is huuuuuge. It’s the biggest category of any country. By a landslide. To put this into context: The US’s Women’s Clothing & Accessories category has almost 10 times more GMV than the top GMV category in our No. 2 country, Great Britain (which also happens to be Women’s Clothing & Accessories). Sneaky fact: Sport & Entertainment, Jewelry & Accessories, and Beauty & Health are way behind Women’s Clothing in total orders. But don’t let that fool you! Any of them would have been No. 1 in any other country. In fact, anything in the US Top 10 would have been No. 1 anywhere else. Some big sellers: 2. United Kingdom Beauty & Health nearly generates the most orders in the UK. As we’ll see, it’s not unusual for Beauty & Health to get lots of orders, but it is unusual just how close it comes to claiming the top spot. The winner, Home & Garden, has just 2% more orders. Headline: Unlike the US, Home & Garden is No. 1 in GMV. Unlike the US also, Women’s Clothing & Accessories is not No. 1 orders. That distinction belongs to Home & Garden. Home & Garden is Great Britain’s top category for orders and GMV. This is the same phenomenon we see in the global numbers: Lots of beauty products are super cheap, letting stores rack up huge order volume (which is awesome) without huge revenue (less awesome). Sneaky fact: Men’s Clothing & Accessories performs very well in GMV even though it is a distant fifth in total orders. Home & Garden, for instance, has about twice as many orders but almost the same GMV. Some big sellers: 3. Australia Another country where Women’s Clothing & Accessories is huge – but with a relaxed, sun-soaked twist. Headline: Australians like beach stuff. Who would have guessed it?! The best seller list is sprinkled with things that you’d see at the beach – loose-fitting dresses, sunglasses, summer scarves. On the men’s side, two of the top three most-ordered products are sunglasses. Sneaky Fact: Australian shoppers buy nearly as many dresses as British shoppers buy skin care products. And skin care is the No. 1 niche in the UK’s No. 1 category. Here’s the thing, though: Those dresses cost an average of about $12, while the UK’s skin care products had an average cost of less than $6. Some big sellers: 4. Canada Canada, the fourth-biggest market for Oberlo users, has the same Top 5 product categories as the United States – but one of the hottest items is something you’d expect to see in Australia. Headline: The Intimates niche has 20+ percent more orders than the next most-ordered item in the Women’s Clothing & Accessories category. Intimates is also the clear frontrunner among US niches. In short, North America ❤️ intimates. Not familiar with intimates? It’s stuff like this: Sneaky Fact: Remember that flowing, flowery beach dress that was so huge in Australia? Yeah, Canadians apparently like it too. It is among the Top 10 most ordered items in Canada. Some big sellers: 5. France The French are known as a stylish lot, and true to form, they bought lots of fashion items. For instance, the total GMV of France’s Beauty & Health products is twice as much as Canada’s, and the Jewelry & Accessories total is about 47 percent more than Canada – even though Canada is the much bigger market overall. Headline: In France, the top most-ordered Beauty and Health products are Health Care related. In total Health Care related products make up 40% of the Beauty and Health GMV, which is unusually high. For comparison’s sake, in the US, Health Care related products account for about 24 percent of Beauty and Health GMV. Sneaky fact: Vintage and retro stuff sell better in France than in most places. Vintage dresses and jackets, sure, but the list goes on. The sunglasses and beat-up baseball cap you see below have a vintage feel to them, plus plenty of other hot-sellers are advertised as vintage. The top item in Women's Clothing is called "Vintage Double Breasted Blazer" and in Men's Clothing it is "Tailor Made Black Suit". Some big sellers: 6. Germany Jewelry and Accessories – which includes everything from earrings to cufflinks – generate the most orders in Germany. In terms of GMV, however, Women’s Clothing & Accessories is at the top of the pack. Headline: Bracelets, keychains, and necklaces led the way in terms of orders in 2018, making it a great place to start when looking for products to sell in 2019. In terms of GMV, autumn wear performed the best in 2018 which is good to keep in mind for the year ahead. Sneaky fact: The German market seems to love knitted attire for the colder months of the year. Even though this type of clothing for men and women can be quite expensive to source for your online store pairing knitted pullovers, and dresses with jewelry and accessories can rack up some serious revenue. Some big sellers: 7. Brazil Let’s head to South America, where our analysis encounters a few firsts: Watches makes its first appearance among the best-selling categories, as does the “Mothers & Kids” category. Headline: Watch out! Sorry, that was a bad joke, but the fact remains that watches is No. 4 in both total orders and total GMV. That’s huge! Remember: Watches is not part of women’s or men’s clothing. It’s a whole separate category with nothing but watches. The watch with the most orders from Brazil costs less than $2, so you could have a massive markup and still charge $19.99. Interesting the Home and Garden category wins the #1 spot for both orders and GMV in Brazil. Sneaky fact: Garden supplies and kitchen items are huge in Brazil. For example, non-stick pans are Nos. 1, 2, and 3 among Home & Garden products with this highest GMV. All told, non-stick pans generate more than a half-million dollars in revenue. Other convenience-focused items like peelers and reusable food wrapping gadgets are also super popular in Brazil. Some big sellers: 8. Italy Let’s head back to Europe for a look at Italy, where Consumer Electronics is a surprising No. 1 in total GMV – and No. 1 by a big margin. There is also a clear winner in the Jewelry & Accessories category, so let’s dive in. Headline: We have to start with Consumer Electronics, a product category that is No. 2 in total orders but easily No. 1 in GMV. In fact, Consumer Electronics has 40 percent more GMV than the next closest category, Men’s Clothing. One of the reasons this is so interesting is that Consumer Electronics hasn’t appeared on any of our lists so far. Let alone at the top. Sneaky fact: “Bracelets” is the top niche in the top category. In fact, Bracelets accounted for a whopping 50 percent of Jewelry & Accessories orders, as well as 58 percent of total GMV in that category. “Smart Electronics,” meanwhile, generate 60 percent of Consumer Electronics sales and 69 percent of Consumer Electronics GMV. This niche is dominated by smartwatches. Some big sellers: 9. Spain Women’s items rule the day in Spain. Thanks to a huge volume of women’s watches, the watches category gets the most orders. Women’s Clothing & Accessories, Beauty & Health, and Jewelry & Accessories also appear in Top 5 for most orders. So definitely keep señoras in mind if you target Spain. Headline: Women’s watches have nearly three times as many orders as men’s watches. That huge sales volume doesn’t really translate to huge GMV – Watches is just No. 6 – but nonetheless, women’s watches ftw. In Brazil, where Watches is also a leading category, men’s watches have about 40 percent more orders than women’s, and about 4.5x more GMV. It was basically the opposite of Spain. Sneaky fact: Sure, smartwatches are popular in Spain, but there are lots of Consumer Electronics items that did well. Mini night vision camcorders, a five-inch video game console, and a “photo stand box” – which is essentially a miniature studio to photograph small objects – all racked up significant sales in Spain. Some big sellers: 10. Switzerland Switzerland has by far the smallest population on our Top 10. By comparison, Brazil has 205 million people Italy has 60 million Spain has more than 45 million And Switzerland… less than 9 million But some clever Oberlo merchants have looked past the petit population and focused on a country that has robust shipping options (including ePacket) and more purchasing power than just about anywhere else in the world. Headline: Swiss buyers don’t shy away from bigger price tags. So while Switzerland will never account for the sheer volume of, say, Germany, it is a market where you can push your more expensive items. Just check out the “Some big sellers” section – coats for $40 and dresses for $20. Sure, you have to absorb higher costs, too, but it doesn’t take that many sales to hit $1,000 if you’re selling products at $75 a pop. Sneaky fact: The Jackets & Coats niche makes up just 7 percent of the women’s clothing orders, but 28 percent of the men’s clothing orders. This is a similar split to other European countries: In Germany, for instance, 28 percent of men’s clothing orders were “Jackets & Coats,” but just 5 percent of women’s clothing orders. France was 22 percent to 13 percent. So men like spending money on jackets! Don’t let that scare you off, though. Women’s clothing has such a high volume that even a “small” percentage can account for a huge number of sales. This is especially the case in classic categories like dresses, shoes, and blouses. Some big sellers: Conclusion Oberlo users have had success all over the globe. For example, Malaysia and the Philippines are two markets that have accounted for huge order counts for dropshippers. So don’t mistake this post as a suggestion to target these 10 markets and ignore everywhere else. There are ways to make sales and revenue way beyond the boundaries of these 10 countries. What this post does show, though, is that not all markets are the same. Brazilian customers don’t want the same thing as Swiss customers. The US is different than France. We all know this on an intuitive level, but it should also be reflected in how you operate your business. If you’re marketing products that you know are hot in one country but not another, then adjust your targeting filters to focus on countries you know could have the biggest impact. It’s not rocket science, but it’s also not 100% easy. Last thing: Do you want to see any more data like this? If we give chocolate chip cookies to our data team, they’ll look up just about anything we ask them to. So if there are specific markets or specific niches that you’re curious about, just let us know in the comments! Want to Learn More? Dropshipping Niches That Are Steady, Not Trendy Hey There, Dropshippers! Here Are Some More Markets to Target! How to Find the Perfect Dropshipping Products How to Find the Best Dropshipping Suppliers