There’s a lot of content online teaching dropshipping. You’ll often see people showing off “revenue” numbers—hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars.
But what they show you is just the tip of the iceberg.
In reality, dropshipping comes with many challenges, and it’s far from easy. Choosing the right business model is one of the most important decisions when you’re just getting started.
In this article, I’ll explain why dropshipping may not be the best fit for beginners—and what business models have more potential if you’re just starting out.
Why Do We Start an Online Business in the First Place?
We start an online business because we want a better life.
A better life means more time, better health, more freedom, and a greater sense of happiness.
But if you find yourself working more and more—losing time, losing freedom, and even sacrificing your health—then something is wrong. You’re either on the wrong path or using the wrong approach.
I’ve seen many people go into business chasing success. But at some point, they realize they’re working 15 hours a day, every day. Their business is growing, but their life is going in the opposite direction.
And the worst part? They don’t know how to get out.
So the real question is: what are you making money for?
When you first start making money online, the most important decision is choosing the right business model—one that actually fits you.
For beginners, the ideal model should meet a few key criteria:
- Low initial investment
- No need to spend money on product development
- Minimal time commitment
- Location freedom
The Advantages of Dropshipping
Dropshipping does have several appealing advantages, especially at first glance:
- Easy to get started, even with little to no experience
- You can sell globally while working from Vietnam
- Easy to scale when running paid ads
- Plenty of tutorials and guides available on YouTube
However, once you get into it, you’ll realize that dropshipping is still a real business.
Just like building a company, you’ll need to handle multiple core functions:
- Marketing – promoting your products
- Fulfillment – processing and delivering orders
- Production – managing suppliers and product quality
- Customer Service – handling customer support
And the reality is, these are exactly the parts that are hardest for beginners.
Challenge #1: Customer Service
Once you start getting 50–100 orders per day, customer service quickly becomes a real challenge.
You’ll be constantly replying to emails from customers.
Most of them will complain about shipping times. In dropshipping, the average delivery time is around one week—that’s the general standard.
But platforms like Amazon are much faster. Even the slowest deliveries usually take no more than 3 days, and in many cases, just 1 day.
Because of that, most customers are already used to Amazon’s speed. In their mind, they expect to receive their order within 1–3 days.
So when shipping takes longer, they start to worry that something is wrong with their order—and they’ll email you.
Even if you clearly state on your website “7–14 days delivery,” many people simply skim and don’t notice it.
Now imagine you’re doing 500 orders a day. Customer service becomes overwhelming.
People will email you, leave negative comments on Facebook, write bad reviews, and even call you directly. Managing all of that can be extremely stressful.
At that point, you’ll likely need to hire help—usually one or two people with solid English skills—to handle customer support full-time.
Challenge #2: Payment Processing
When running a dropshipping business, you’ll have to rely on payment processors. The most popular ones today are PayPal, Stripe, and Shopify Payments.
This is a major issue in dropshipping—one that very few people talk about.
If you use PayPal, once you reach a certain level of revenue—let’s say around $50,000—there’s a high chance your account will get limited or even frozen. At that point, PayPal will require you to prove that you’re running a legitimate business and actually delivering products to customers.
And when that happens, your entire business comes to a halt.
Even a refund rate of just around 1% can make you extremely stressed.
PayPal’s priority is to protect buyers—making sure they either receive the product or get their money back. Because of that, they may hold your funds until you can verify your business.
The core issue is that PayPal doesn’t fully trust the dropshipping model.
Stripe is generally more stable than PayPal, but getting approved isn’t always straightforward. Depending on your country and business setup, you may need to go through additional verification steps and provide more documentation before your account is fully operational.
Challenge #3: Finding Reliable, High-Quality Suppliers
If you want satisfied customers, you simply can’t sell low-quality products.
You need to offer products that genuinely solve problems—not cheap, low-value items that flood the internet.
In dropshipping, you’ll constantly be testing products to find a “winner.” Sometimes, you might test 10–20 products per day.
The problem is, during this process, it’s very difficult to find the best suppliers. Quality control becomes a major challenge. And in some cases, suppliers may ship defective products to your customers—without you even knowing.
Once you finally find a winning product, the real work begins.
At that point, you’ll need to connect directly with suppliers in China, carefully select the most reliable one, and build a strong working relationship with them. You’ll also need them to prepare inventory in advance.
Because once you start scaling ads, you could be doing hundreds or even thousands of orders per day—and your supplier must be ready to fulfill those orders immediately, without delays or quality issues.
A Better Alternative to Dropshipping for Beginners
So if dropshipping isn’t the best choice, what business model should a beginner start with?
Over the past 7 years, I’ve had the chance to try many different ways to make money online. Every model has its pros and cons.
But for beginners, affiliate marketing is one of the most suitable options.
If you’re starting with a limited budget, I recommend focusing on SEO-based affiliate marketing. It’s a very sustainable approach.
With around $40/month, you can cover a domain, hosting, and still have some budget left for AI tools to help you create content.
If you have a stronger budget (around $400/month), you can explore paid traffic affiliate marketing.
The idea is simple: run ads on Facebook or Google, send traffic to a landing page, and from there, direct users to the product page to generate sales.
The biggest advantage is this: you don’t have to deal with customer service or payment processing.
With affiliate marketing, your main focus is marketing.
When it comes to paid ads, capital is the key factor.
You’ll run ads, test landing pages, test products—and repeat. By analyzing your data consistently, you can become proficient within a few months.
And once you hit a winning campaign, the returns can be very significant.
Final Thoughts: Don’t Chase Shiny Objects
On the internet, you’ll see all kinds of business models being promoted—dropshipping, Amazon FBA, Etsy, agencies, YouTube… and to be fair, each of them has its own advantages.
But my advice is simple: don’t chase shiny objects.
Stay focused on affiliate marketing. That’s it.
Trust me—I’ve spent years trying different ways to make money online. That’s why you’ll see a wide range of topics on this website.
But after all those years of experience, testing, and reflection… one thing became very clear:
Affiliate marketing still stands out as the best path.