How Many Dropshippers Are There In The World? (2023 Stats)

Worldwide dropshipping has been growing steadily over the years. That being said you must be wondering how many dropshippers are there in the world. In this article, we will figure out a good estimate of the number of dropshippers using data, industry reports, and regional trends.

Please note: You are free to use any of the dropshipper stats featured in this post in your own articles. However, we’d politely request that you to credit eComBusinessHub as a source and provide a link to this post when doing so.

How Many Dropshippers Are There In The World?

There is no way of figuring out the exact number since there’s no way to really track this information since the dropshipping industry is constantly growing. That being said, there was a report done by Shopify (ecommerce platform) saying that there are more than 1 million dropshippers out there!

That being said, I have tried to find my own data to find a more accurate number since Shopify is one of many ecommerce platforms.

And from my own research, I’d say there are at least more than 2,532,229 dropshippers out there.

Estimating the number of dropshippers worldwide

There is no official data on the number of dropshippers there are worldwide so, we can only estimate how many those are.

We will explore this in-depth and try to give you the most precise estimate there is out there based on the data and reports below!

My Research

We know that Shopify is not the only ecommerce platform that dropshippers use. We have to take a look at all the other popular ecommerce platforms.

Such as:

Shopify – 4,557,961 Website available at the time. (BuiltWith Data)
WooCommerce – 3,489,570 Website available at the time. (BuiltWith Data)
Magento – 142,852 Websites available at the time. (BuiltWith Data)
PrestaShop – 250,380 Websites available at the time. (BuiltWith Data)

There were more platforms I didn’t include but they all had under 100k users.

If we were to assume that out of those 4.5 million websites that Shopify has about 30% are dropshipping we get around 1,367,388 people which is closer to the report by Shopify that said there are more than 1 million dropshippers out there.

So, if we assume that 30% of all the users on the above are dropshippers we get a grand total of 2,532,229 dropshippers. (This excludes other smaller ecommerce platforms that seem to have less than 100k websites available.)

NOTE: This number will constantly keep changing since these sites can get more or less people on them.

Factors Influencing The Number Of Dropshippers

There are 4 factors that influence the number of dropshippers there are.

1. Ease of Creating A Store

Before Shopify came into the market, you had to be a tech savvy person to set up a website and have a bunch of different applications work together in order to create a store.

But, now with Shopify you can easily create a store and get started immediately.

In fact, you get access to the same technology a lot of large ecommerce brands are using like Kylie Cosmetics and Fashion Nova.

2. Finding Dropshipping Suppliers

It is also important to find dropshipping suppliers if you want to dropship. Before Aliexpress was famous, there were a lot fewer dropshippers. Nowadays you have many places and suppliers you can easily get in touch with.

Some of these suppliers:

Having these suppliers makes dropshipping much easier for a beginner to start doing. Long before these, you’d have to hit up various companies on forums, view directory sites or contact companies directly.

3. Entrepreneurial Culture

We know that nowadays people want to escape their 9-5 more than ever. And you will see a trend that many people are pushing on social media to pursue entrepreneurship.

Ever since the pandemic this has been increased because countless people lost their jobs. Not only this, it’s much easier to start a business and reach an audience worldwide with low start up costs than ever before.

Especially with dropshipping you don’t even need to have any inventory. You can even start dropshipping without spending any money on paid ads.

Most people didn’t even know about dropshipping years ago, so, only a few of them were dropshipping. You have many YouTube gurus and many other people on social media pushing dropshipping so they can get views and course sales.

Overall you can see the trend chart of dropshipping growing here. I expect it to grow much bigger in the next 5 years which will only increase competition.

4. Global economic conditions and market trends

We do know that during a recession people tend to find for side hustles and different ways to make money. This would have an impact on the number of dropshippers there are.

People tend to also have less trust in working for companies when they have just recently been laid off.

Regional Breakdown Of Dropshippers

You can see above the countries that have the most interest in dropshipping from 2004 – current date:

Pakistan – 100
Sri Lanka – 92
Morocco – 78
Nigeria – 64
Nepal – 58

You can see a clear pattern that, most dropshippers aren’t from first world countries. And it makes sense since these are developing nations, you can sell to the US, Canada, UK, and Australia and make a pretty good living in these countries with low volume.

Let’s take a look at the US, UK, Australia, and Canada:

US:

Canada:

Australia:

United Kingdom:

As you can see, Australia seems to have the highest search interest, next being Canada, followed by the United Kingdom, and lastly the United States.

One thing to keep in mind is that this is based on Google search data so, it’s based on the volume and NOT based on the percentage of people living their interested.

How Many Dropshipping Stores Are There in the World?

That depends on what source you look at. Some sources such as Wikipedia and a few others point out that it’s between 13 – 24 million ecommerce stores online. Of course, those aren’t all dropshipping stores, so about 28% of them are dropshipping.

That would be 3.2 – 6.4 million dropshipping stores out there. Keep in mind we are talking dropshipping stores not the amount of dropshippers. Dropshipping market in 2022 was valued at $225 Million USD and is said to grow by 23.4% from 2023 to 2030 according to Grand View Research.

Another thing to keep in mind is that this does not indicate dropshipping as their main method but, it could be supplementary with say other forms of ecommerce. The majority of stores are actually fulfilling orders manually and not doing dropshipping according to Statista.

One more thing to keep in mind is that those that do good with dropshipping eventually move away from dropshipping into wholesaling/private labeling for greater profit margins.

Where Can You Find Dropshippers?

There are many ways of finding dropshippers. Many of them hang out in various Facebook groups, Discord, and Reddit communities.

Here are some Facebook groups where you can find dropshippers:

Here are some Discord Communities to find dropshippers:

Here are some Reddit Communities to find dropshippers:

Final Thoughts

There are an estimated 2,532,229 dropshippers worldwide. Dropshipping has become a popular business due to how easy and low-cost it is to start.

Despite all the competition that you are selling, it has never been easier to dropship than before.

And while the whole dropshipping game has gotten hard, it’s still viable to those who are willing to put the work in.

Remember, while things do get more competitive, there are more and more people having access to the internet and purchasing goods online!

How Many Dropshippers Are There In The World?