If you want to start an online business without manufacturing and shipping your own products, consider starting a dropshipping business. Starting a dropshipping ecommerce business involves launching an online store and selling products sourced by a third-party company that handles the order fulfillment process. With the right sales and marketing skills, you can build a successful ecommerce business with minimal upfront and overhead costs using the dropshipping business model.
But where should you start? Whether it’s finding high-quality dropshipping products that fill a niche in the market or developing a marketing strategy to attract potential customers to your online store, you’ll need to develop some new skills before starting your own business. Fortunately, there are online dropshipping courses designed to help you get started.
Factors to consider when choosing a dropshipping course
Finding the best dropshipping course for you and your business idea requires some niche research—especially with so many so-called experts flooding the internet with get-rich-quick content. Here are four factors to consider:
Instructor’s credentials
Choose dropshipping courses from instructors with a proven track record and real-world experience. To find credible instructors, explore online platforms with a good reputation, like Udemy, Coursera, or Shopify Academy. There are also free courses on YouTube, but be sure to research the instructors and their dropshipping experience. Check out their dropshipping stores, as well, to determine whether their credentials are legitimate.
Quality of the content
Dropshipping involves hard work and persistence. You’ll need to source products, launch your online store, define your brand, and acquire customers through marketing strategies. As such, look for courses that reflect the reality of the dropshipping industry rather than offering shortcuts. Courses that promise huge payouts or secret hacks for earning money can mislead and distract viewers from business fundamentals.
Online learning platforms include ratings and reviews from users. For example, on Udemy, you can see how many students have bought a class, the average instructor rating, and detailed reviews from students. Avoid classes that have low ratings or bad reviews with consistent themes. One bad review might be a fluke, but if you see several that flag similar problems, it’s a good sign to steer clear. Similarly, read comments posted on relevant YouTube channels or subreddits for honest feedback about students’ experiences with particular dropshipping classes.
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Relevance
Choose a dropshipping course that reflects accurate information about the latest trends in dropshipping and online marketing. Older courses with outdated information can fail to provide a true picture of what it takes to launch a successful dropshipping business in the current online marketplace. For example, only more recently published courses can teach dropshippers how to sell products on TikTok with TikTok Shop, which officially launched in September 2023.
Older courses about dropshipping basics can still provide useful information, but if you want to learn about the latest product trends or marketing channels, consider more recently produced content.
Cost
Another important factor to consider when choosing a dropshipping course is the price. YouTube courses and public podcasts are free, but other courses may be cost-prohibitive, depending on your budget. For example, popular Udemy courses cost between $100 and $150, whereas some private courses can cost several hundred dollars.
Determine what value more expensive courses are offering to make sure they’re worth the investment. For example, some dropshipping courses include business coaching services and consulting help with finding suppliers or choosing products to dropship.
5 of the best dropshipping courses
- Dropshipping University
- The Ecom King
- The Complete Shopify Dropshipping Course
- The Complete Shopify Masterclass 2025
- Tan Choudhury
Here are some of the top online courses for exploring how to start a dropshipping business:
1. Dropshipping University
On Shopify’s Learn With Shopify YouTube channel, you can find Dropshipping University, a playlist featuring nearly three dozen free videos focused specifically on dropshipping. Discover beginner tutorials about setting up your first Shopify dropshipping store alongside videos about dropshipping on TikTok and finding product ideas. From keyword research tools for search engine optimization (SEO) to strategies for evaluating the competition, Dropshipping University covers the necessary steps it takes to launch a dropshipping store using Shopify.
Price: Free
2. The Ecom King
The Ecom King’s dropshipping course, created by entrepreneur Kamil Sattar, consists of free YouTube videos that cover the process of creating, designing, and building a Shopify dropshipping store. Kamil focuses his free videos on teaching viewers how to develop a realistic one- to three-year plan for finding dropshipping products, developing a brand, and marketing products online with strategies like influencer marketing and video advertising.
On an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast, Kamil tells the story of how he almost quit dropshipping in 2017. Buying too many ads and trying to sell too many products lost him money in the beginning, he says. But after learning new skills and adjusting his strategy, he turned his Shopify dropshipping store into a business that earned more than $1 million by the end of the following year.
Kamil’s YouTube channel features long-form videos like a comprehensive beginner’s guide and shorter videos covering recommendations for dropshipping products and other topics. Kamil has a particular focus on TikTok dropshipping, having earned over seven figures using TikTok Shop. On Shopify Masters, Kamil discusses the importance of organic video ads on TikTok, saying, “What works on TikTok is a video that doesn’t even look like an ad. So it needs to either be user-generated content [or] point-of-view content, and it needs to be between 10 and 30 seconds [long].”
Price: Free
3. The Complete Shopify Dropshipping Course
Created by ecommerce entrepreneur Tim Sharp, The Complete Shopify Dropshipping Course is a bestseller on the online learning platform Udemy, as evidenced by thousands of positive reviews. Costing $125, the course includes nine and a half hours of video content, three articles, and three downloadable resources.
Tim’s course covers the entire process of starting a dropshipping business from scratch. It reviews essentials like how to set up your Shopify store and register a domain name, plus more complicated topics like setting up a live chat to provide 24/7 support to your customers.
Price: $125
4. The Complete Shopify Dropshipping Masterclass 2025
The Complete Shopify Dropshipping Masterclass 2025 provides nine hours of video about setting up your dropshipping business, choosing a profitable product niche, and marketing your Shopify store with paid ads on platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads.
This Udemy course costs $140 and has a 4.6 out of 5 rating, with more than 7,000 reviews. Taught by digital marketing and WordPress experts, the course covers the basics of dropshipping on Shopify and goes into depth about copywriting and content marketing best practices that can drive traffic to your Shopify store.
Price: $140
5. Tan Choudhury
Tan Choudhury is an entrepreneur and influencer with a YouTube channel dedicated to dropshipping training for new entrepreneurs. His videos, which you can watch for free, cover how to start your first Shopify store, product trends, and other topics.
On Shopify Masters, Tan discusses how he transitioned away from selling glass art after discovering dropshipping as a profitable business model. His free YouTube tutorials focus on a simple approach to building your dropshipping business—starting with one product at a time.
“Trying to merchandise 20 products as a beginner can be pretty overwhelming,” Tan says on the podcast. “You are going to lose sight of focusing the attention on what really matters—which is your conversion rate, your copy, your product photos, and really spending ample time to differentiate your store from other brands out there.”
Price: Free
Best dropshipping courses FAQ
Where is the best place to learn dropshipping?
It’s best to learn dropshipping from experienced dropshipping instructors—like those on Dropshipping University—who release online courses with informed advice about identifying your target audience, finding dropshipping products, advertising your brand, and supporting customers post-purchase.
What education is needed for dropshipping?
No formal education is needed to start a dropshipping business; however, it takes a fundamental understanding of business, ecommerce, and marketing to do it successfully.
How much do dropshipping courses cost?
Dropshipping courses can cost anywhere from zero to several hundred dollars.
