Disclosure: This post or page may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that we recommended. Read more about Affiliate disclosure here.
Are you planning to start a profitable Tea dropshipping store?
Today, Tea is popular, and the most widely consumed beverage in the world next to water, and almost 80% of all U.S. households keep tea in their homes. Starting a dropshipping business minimizes your risk due to its low upfront capital.
If you are planning to dropship tea, it can be a profitable business opportunity for you even in 2024. The USA market is the biggest opportunity for tea sellers .
If you have ever wondered how to start a tea dropshipping business and want to become a tea dropshipper, this will serve to be the best guide you have ever come across. This will give you deep insights into this marketplace.
Are you excited? Let’s get started!
Table of Contents
Market size of Tea Sales in the US (1990 to 2020)
As per a Statista statistic report published on Jan 13, 2022, the wholesale tea value in the United States from 1990 to 2020. U.S. wholesale tea sales amounted to approximately 1.84 billion U.S. dollars in 1990 and increased to about 13.12 billion U.S. dollars in 2020.
In 2019 alone, ready-to-drink (RTD) tea generated sales amounting to approximately 7.9 billion U.S. dollars.
The above chart is a clear indication that tea sales in the US will continue to grow.
Dropshipping: An Overview
Dropshipping is a business model where a seller will enter into an agreement with a supplier (prior to selling the item) to ship the product directly to the buyer.
The motivation point here is that a seller never buys the product, nor does make any investment into product-buying until an item is sold. They also do not have to go through the hassle of packaging and shipping.
This way, a drop shipper can list the items on their eCommerce store and when the item gets sold, they can forward it to the supplier for order fulfillment.
I will be sharing each of these steps in detail down the page. However, let’s first learn what dropshipping is and how exactly it works.
What are the Benefits of Tea Dropshipping?
Money should never be the only factor when we start a business. There must be some space to breathe and also the freedom to work.
Let’s look at why starting a tea dropshipping business is a smart choice:
Convenience: With dropshiping business model, it is far easier to start selling tea products without spending a dime for an inventory. Dropshipping not only eliminates the hassle of packaging and shipping, but also allows you to save on overhead costs.
Wide Product Selection: As there is no upfront investment, you can choose to offer a wide range of tea products from different brands and flavors. It will cater to different tastes and result in more sales.
Lower Risk: Dropshipping is always a low-risk business because you do not invest in physical store houses, or the products. You also need not hire people or pay for electricity or water charges. Your suppliers bear all these costs.
Location Independent: One of the benefits of dropshipping is you can work from anywhere even sitting at a restaurant or a beach or in altogether in a different country. This freedom is not with traditional retail business where you have a physical shop.
Flexible Working Hours: You can do dropshipping as a part-time job before or after your regular job or you can work as a full-timer.
How To Start A Tea Dropshipping Business?
Building a tea dropshipping business will require:
- In-depth Research
- A Domain and Hosting
- An online store
- Finding Tea Dropshipping Suppliers
- Solid Marketing Plan
Let’s learn in detail about each of these steps…
1. In-depth Research
Before starting a business, you should do a product research. All smart companies invest time and money into a product research, consumer interest in that product and business potential. Then only they invest into that business.
Do you think Amazon woke up one day from its sleep and started building Alexa? The answer is No.
If you start selling any and every type of tea bags without proper research, you might end up selling a few tea bags for sure; but you cannot turn it into a profitable dropshipping store.
I will break this research segment into 3 parts:
1. Identify your product
You should start by asking yourself about what type of tea would appeal to your target consumers. An example is, you can ask yourself, “What is the most popular tea in the USA?”
Well, I googled this question and the answer is Black Tea.
2. Identify your competitors
The next part is Identify your competitors. For this, you could simply go to Google and type “Buy Black tea online”. Make a note of all your competitors.
3. Identify the product and service gap
In the last part of this research journey, you need to identify Product gap and Service gap.
You should try to identify what are the products that your competitors are not selling and check their dispatch time and other services like return window, refund policy etc and try to find gaps.
As a smart dropshipper, you have to fill this gap to have an upper hand over your competitors.
Once this research is completed, you now have identified your products. You also know you have to find only the suppliers who deliver faster than your competitors, offer faster returns as well as refunds if any disputes arise.
This will now be your competitive edge.
2. Domain and Hosting
Before you launch your tea dropshipping store, you need a domain name. Your domain is your store’s online address. Let’s say, for example, my blog is an online store and its domain is www.BossfreeStressfree.com.
In addition to your domain name, you also need the space required for building your store. Your store will have lots of content, file, and images and you need an online space to store them. This space hosts your website and is called Hosting. A domain name and hosting is the first step you need to take.
I prefer Namecheap for my domain and hosting services; however, you can use any of the other reliable companies like Hostinger.
3. An Online Store
The next step is to build your online shop for your tea dropshipping business. If you do not know how to build an online store, you need to hire a web developer who will have the expertise in building your store and integrating a payment method. For an online store, you can use any reliable platform like Shopify or WooCommerce. Shopify comes with a monthly cost while WooCommerce does not cost you anything.
To build your store, you need a web developer. I prefer Fiverr where you can find good developers to build your online store.
4. Finding a Supplier
Now, you need to look for a supplier that can fulfill all the orders you receive from the buyers. You can find such suppliers in your neighborhood, in local markets, and at the trade fair to name a few. They are available online as well.
Finding a dropshipping tea supplier is a very important step in the entire process, and you must not rush through it. You should start by asking yourself about what type of tea would appeal to your target consumers.
For your business success, you need to understand that you and your dropshipping tea supplier have to work together as partners to keep the customers happy and the business going.
When finding a supplier, make sure you choose a reputable supplier with a good inventory of tea and other beverages, and the ability to efficiently, safely, and quickly ship those items.
I recommend partnering up with a reliable supplier who must provide quality products at a competitive price, 1-2 days shipments as well as offer Returns and Refunds. If you can find a Wholesale supplier, you would have a better profit margin.
If you have not been able to find any suppliers as yet, you should keep your search on, and in the meantime, you can try SaleHoo where you can find vetted and reliable tea dropshipping suppliers.
5. Marketing Plan
The last and most important part of your business plan is marketing your store to potential buyers so that you can get leads and conversion. For a content marketing strategy, you can go for Google Advertising and Facebook marketing.
You should focus on launching successful marketing campaigns that will bring customers to you. However, that should not end here.
It is important that these customers become recurring customers. Fortunately, tea is such a beverage that you can easily turn your random website visitors into your recurring customers by delivering quality products and services. While you are running your campaigns, remember it is easy to bring a customer than keep it for a long time. So, made sure you do not lose customers once they buy from you.
My recommendation is SaleHoo. They are a large number of Vetted suppliers.
How to Dropship Black Tea and Herbal Tea?
Tea sales in the US is ever increasing and they love to taste all tea flavors and varieties. The reason is not just taste, but also health benefits.
In the US, two most popular tea categories are Black Tea and Herbal Tea that you can add to online store.
Black Tea
America loves Black Tea like anything. How much? Well! To give you an idea, more than half of the population in the US consume Black tea. As it is blended with other plants for different flavors, it has a strong flavor and is more caffeine than other teas. But it is not as strong as a coffee.
It offers excellent health benefits due to its antioxidants and compounds. Black tea may:
- reduce the risk of heart disease by 8%.
- reduce your risk of stroke.
- helps with alertness and focus.
- lowers blood sugar levels
- decreases the risk of some cancers
Herbal Tea
Over a quarter of US tea lovers consume Herbal tea. This is the second most popular tea category in the US.
Herbal tea also offers health benefit. Herbal tea has varieties like Peppermint, Chamomile, and Ginger tea.
Here are the benefits:
Peppermint tea
It antioxidant, anticancer, antibacterial, and antiviral properties that can help relieve indigestion, nausea, stomach pain, and other symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.
Chamomile tea
It helps to reduce muscle spasms and thus reduces menstrual pain, and stress, and also improves sleep and relaxation.
Ginger tea
It is an excellent herb against morning sickness, and is used to treat joint pain caused by osteoarthritis and chronic indigestion.
Hibiscus tea
It is well known for preventing the formation of kidney calculi (stones) as well as lowering fat levels and blood pressure and improving overall liver health.
Black Tea and Herbal Tea Dropshipping Suppliers
1. Lifetime Tea
If you are looking for a supplier for herbal tea, you can try Lifetime Tea. If you want to dropship tea private label, they offer even private label customized services and is one of the best dropshipping tea companies.
The Minimum Order Value (MOV) for creating any custom blend is $2,000.
They can offer:
- Green tea
- White tea
- Matcha
- Oolong
- Black tea
- Pu-erh
- Rooibos
2. Empire Tea
The company started around 42 years ago.
They are in the wholesale and drop shipping tea business, fully committed to providing premium quality teas since they started. You can use them for even private label dropshipping. They have a very reasons le price for loose tea and pyramid sachets that start at 4.50 per Pouch and 5.00 per Tin respectively.
3. GreenDropShip
GreenDropShip offers over 20,000 Natural, Organic, Gourmet & Specialty Products at real Wholesale Prices. If you want to dropship organic tea, you can explore them for really some wonderful tea products. They offer you all tools required for your dropshipping business. However, you need to take their annual dropship membership, available for US $149.00/year. You can use their services even for private label tea dropship business.
It specializes in natural and organic products, and has the logistical know-how to manage inventory to ensure grocery items arrive on-time, at the proper temperature and within their sell-by date.
4. Doba
Another popular platform for tea dropshipping suppliers is Doba. It connects suppliers to dropshippers and offers a wide range of tea products, including various green tea varieties with competitive pricing. With a wide range of tea products, retailers can choose to expand their product offerings.
With Doba, you can start an online tea store without the hassle of managing inventory and shipping the products. It can give you access to reliable suppliers ensuring the quality and reliability of the tea products you sell.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Starting an Online Tea Business
Starting a small business can be tough, and sadly, many entrepreneurs fail because they make common mistakes. This is especially true in the crowded tea industry. But there are ways to improve your chances of success.
You can do this by figuring out what makes your business special, planning your budget realistically, getting a good website, focusing on what your customers want, and adding your own personal touch to your business.
Let’s discuss how you can succeed:
- Define your selling points: The first step is to discover what makes your tea business stand out. Find a particular group of people to target or address a specific problem in the market.
- Create a Realistic Budget: Plan your finances carefully. Allocate money for initial inventory, building a website, and marketing. A budget ranging from $2,000 to $5,000 is a good starting point.
- Build a User-Friendly Website: Invest in a straightforward website that fosters trust. You can use platforms like Shopify or WordPress to get started.
- Customer Feedback Matters: Listen to your customers’ opinions and adapt your products and services accordingly. Their needs should be your guiding light.
- Customer-Centric Approach: Always keep your customers’ needs at the forefront of your business. Their satisfaction is key to building a loyal customer base.
- Streamline Ordering: Make the ordering process on your website simple and quick. You want to make it easy for customers to purchase your products.
- Personalize the Experience: Consider adding personal touches like thank-you notes, swift shipping, and free product samples to make your customers feel valued.
With these steps and steering clear of typical blunders, you’ll boost your odds of thriving in the bustling world of tea. Keep your customers at the heart of your business, uncover what sets you apart, and dedicate resources to your website and marketing. This way, you can create a strong brand and cultivate a devoted customer following.
Read also:
Frequently Asked Questions
Is dropshipping tea profitable?
Yes, tea dropshipping is sill profitable even in 2024. You should add brand tea and most popular tea categories for dropshipping and make a good Marketing strategy.
Can you dropship Matcha tea?
Matcha tea is a Japanese green tea powder having some good cancer-fighting antioxidants and yes you can dropship it.
Final Words
Now, you are fully ready to launch your general tea or organic tea dropshipping business in the US and elsewhere and secure your place among the best tea dropshippers, and to dropship tea to tea lovers. While launching your business, it is important that you set the right expectations for yourself. Remember, just because you have started a tea business does not mean everyone will start buying from you immediately. It takes time (I sold my first item after 6 months) and you get better day by day through your experience as a drop shipper. organic tea dropshipping
If for some reason, your standalone store is not making good money for you, you need to find out the reason and replace them with what will work for you. In the meantime, so as to stay motivated and earn some money in your initial days as a drop shipper, you can start selling on eCommerce marketplaces also like Amazon or eBay while working on your store to bring business.
Are you already dropshipping or want to start an online tea business? How has been your experience? Do share your comments in the box below. Is this article helpful? If so, please do share it on your social media with others so that everyone can benefit. Sharing is caring. 🙂
