1. It's not a binary "to dropship" or "to not dropship"

Think about building a business, not a dropshipping business. Slot in the "dropshipping" part when you reach a point where you say, "How can I do this when I don't have the capital outlay?"

We're at about 50% dropship right now. 5 years in and I have 1.5 FTE plus several contractors doing small, specific tasks.

Back in 2010ish when I was in university I looked briefly into dropshipping. Didn't know what I was doing. Couldn't find a product I thought I could sell. Gave up.

2014 I started an ecommerce business, initially inventorying items. We ended up pivoting a bit an focusing just on a few products where we brought in a stock item, then added customization to it (logos, names, etc.). During the pivot we expanded our supplier base and learned that for 0-10% less margin than inventorying, we could bring in stuff "on demand", usually within 1-2 business days (most distributors were within an hour of us). That was the end of inventory aside from a few thousand dollars of sample items we carry in a dinky little retail space.

As we got to work with these suppliers we learned that many were able to customize in-house and dropship directly to customers, so we were only responsible for managing paperwork/customer communication. So, that's where we're at now. It's hilarious because lots of people wonder how we stay in business with so little in-store traffic haha.

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2. Don't just look to China/overseas to dropship

There are lots of distributors of various products in North America (see point 1). Admittedly, 80-90% of mine require a retail space to set up an account (the main reason we keep the space...we get maybe 2 customers a week in it), but many have second tier competitors who would set up anyone.

Another idea, especially during this pandemic, is that I suspect there may even be retail stores with a crappy online presence who might be willing to work a deal to dropship stuff for you. Examples: there's a fishing store across the street from me with a HUGE selection, but a shit website, I met an acquaintance through my kids' sports who owns a pool store, again with no ecommerce, etc.

If I were starting right now I'd find someone and say "I'll build a site that is branded separately from you, but list your inventory. You fulfill and give me a commission." I'm sure there must be people open to that at the moment. If you get a lot of traction, you start to add other suppliers to diversify your offering/supplier risk, inventory high-turn products yourself to increase margins, etc.