How to Set Up Shopify for Dropshipping: Settings, in Order

What Does a Shopify Dropshipping Setup Have to Cover?

Dropshipping removes the stockroom, not the responsibility. Shopify's Help Center section on dropshipping says the model removes the need to manage inventory or shipping operations, "though you remain responsible for customer service and order tracking."

Its legal guidance for dropshippers holds you to the laws that apply to the sale of products "as if you're a retailer of those products," and Shopify's Terms of Service name you the seller or merchant of record for all sales. What you control is narrow, and setup is where you use it.

The rest is configuration, in nine steps. They are in the order we recommend, because each depends on the one before.

The order is ours, not Shopify's. None of the Shopify pages we read on October 10, 2026 gives a single ordered checklist for configuring a store for dropshipping that covers shipping profiles, payment capture, policies and a test order; the pages are listed in the box at the end of Staying paid.

What Do You Need Before You Configure Anything?

During your free trial, your online store is automatically in private mode, per Shopify's launch preparation page, so nothing you configure is visible to shoppers until you launch.

Shopify's pricing page, as read in September 2026, describes the offer as a free 3-day trial with no credit card required, after which most plans start at $1 per month on the US page for the first 3 months before switching to standard pricing.

The trial is short and step two includes waiting for a sample, so pick the plan early: you won't be charged any subscription fees until the trial expires, and Shopify lets you test a payment gateway only after you've chosen a paid plan.

If you have not opened the store yet, start Shopify's free trial. This guide skips the general build; what each plan costs after the promotional months is in our Shopify pricing breakdown.

How Do You Connect a Product Source?

The source comes in three forms, and each changes later steps differently: an app can add a location to your store, Collective brings its own shipping profile and a Shopify Payments requirement, and an email-order supplier leaves tracking to you.

With a dropshipping app

Apps that physically stock inventory for you are treated as locations, says Shopify's locations page, without counting toward your location limit, and its shipping profiles setup page adds that some apps that manage fulfillment "can alter your shipping settings setup."

Which app? As of October 10, 2026, Shopify's recommended dropshipping and print on demand apps page names four dropshipping apps (Shopify Collective, Dropcommerce: US Dropshipping, Dropship: EU & US Dropshipping and Syncee), says the list "isn't exhaustive," and warns: "Beware of apps that dominate rankings due to install volume but don't prioritize shipping speed or product quality."

The four apps our own comparison covers (DSers, Spocket, AutoDS and Zendrop) are not on that list as of the same date. Choosing between them, or choosing Collective instead, is a separate decision; we work through it in Shopify Collective vs dropshipping apps.

With a supplier you email

A supplier with no app is still workable: Shopify's custom fulfillment services pass orders by email, "provided that the fulfillment service can process orders by email." The setup is in how to set up a custom fulfillment service.

With Shopify Collective

Shopify lists seven requirements for Collective retailers and says you need to meet all of them; start with two. Per Shopify's Collective requirements page, your store must be located in one of the supported countries and regions, and you need to complete the Shopify Payments account setup, with active payouts; Shopify's app recommendations page adds that Collective "is recommended for merchants in the United States." Another of the seven is an active Shopify plan; the requirements page does not say whether a store in its free trial counts.

A walkthrough on Shopify's Learn With Shopify channel shows the Collective marketplace and importing products into a store.

On this route a default Shopify Collective shipping profile is created in your Shipping and delivery settings, imported products are added to it automatically unless you create a custom one, and suppliers handle fulfillment and sync order tracking information with you. Price lists, how the supplier is paid and the full requirements are in how Shopify Collective works.

Order a sample before you import

Shopify's legal guidance puts the sample ahead of the supplier decision: "it's good practice to order products from the supplier so that you can determine how long it takes them to process and ship an order, and how long it takes for products to arrive."

Its page on the dropshipping fulfillment process gives the reason: a wholesaler "might process orders very quickly, but then choose the cheapest, slowest shipping method available to ship the product to your customer." From that order, write down the processing time, the delivery time, the carrier and what the supplier charged you for shipping.

A sample tells you about one order. How to run sample and test orders so they prove something about the supplier is in our vetting guide: samples and test orders.

Check that you can sell it

Not every product in a supplier's catalog can be sold through your store. Shopify Payments lists "Counterfeit products" among its prohibited categories; Stripe's list of restricted businesses, which Shopify's processor list points to for the United States, names "Unauthorized sale of brand-name or designer products or services"; and Shopify's legal guidance makes product safety your responsibility even though you never handle the goods. There is no single list to check against: what you can't sell on Shopify explains how the rule sets fit together.

Which Setup Route Is Yours?

Every store goes through those first three sections. From here the weight shifts with your source, your payment options, borders and the number of suppliers.

The five questions below cross those signals and return a short plan: what to install, which setting to open first, and a line for your shipping policy. The quiz takes your sourcing model as given; it does not pick one.

What to Check on Every Imported Product

Whatever your app or Collective filled in, five settings on each product decide whether an order can be placed, at what price, and who ships it. The first is a floor Shopify states in its pricing guidance for dropshippers.

On products imported through Shopify Collective, Shopify says inventory quantities are managed by the supplier and are read-only in your store admin, and that changes to Inventory tracked are overridden when the supplier updates the original product.

The price rule is a floor, not a strategy: what is left after payment fees, refunds, returns and ad spend is worked through in our dropshipping profit margin breakdown.

When to allow selling at zero stock is covered in should you let Shopify sell when out of stock.

How Do You Set Up Shipping Around a Supplier?

A dropshipping store ships nothing and still pays for shipping: Shopify's page on shipping strategies for dropshipping notes that such businesses "are usually still charged shipping fees from their suppliers." And a new store does not start from a blank page, which is the first trap.

Give the app's location its own rates

Shopify gives two ways out, both in Settings > Shipping and delivery:

1. If you know the shipping costs that your dropshipping supplier charges, click Create new rate, and then configure rates for your app location.
2. Otherwise, use the rates of another location for the app location.

The app is added for you only in the simplest setup. Shopify's page on fulfilling orders with an app says: "If your shipping settings use only the general shipping profile and don't have different rates per location, then any fulfillment app is automatically added to your shipping settings." With a custom profile or per-location rates, adding the app's location is your job.

A missing rate is one of several reasons a product can read as sold out while stock exists; the others are in why a Shopify product shows as sold out when you still have stock.

One shipping profile per supplier

Suppliers charge you differently, and "some suppliers charge different rates to different countries." Shipping profiles mirror that: each store comes with a general shipping profile that applies to all products by default, and you can create up to 99 custom shipping profiles. A product or variant can be in only one profile at a time, so one profile per supplier is a clean rule.

The cost shows up in mixed carts. Rates for products from different shipping profiles or locations are combined into a single shipping rate at checkout; in the example on Shopify's dropshipping page, a shipping profile for plates at $5 and one for bowls at $4 mean "a checkout with a plate and a bowl would result in a $9 shipping rate."

Shopify's page on combined shipping rates sets out when a cart is charged once and when the rates add up:

• Shipping rates with the same name are added together and displayed to your customer at checkout, even those in different shipping profiles.
• An order that ships from multiple locations within the same location group is charged a single flat rate.
• Weight-based, carrier-calculated and app rates apply a combined rate.

Parcels split too. On stores that use split shipping in checkout, items from different locations or shipping profiles ship separately, the customer can't choose how the cart is split, and certain third-party fulfillment apps might not be compatible, so test a mixed cart on your storefront.

You pay each supplier its own shipping cost on such an order, and some items might be delivered to your customers before others; Shopify's advice is that "creating bundles using products from a single supplier helps avoid split shipments and simplifies order fulfillment." What the customer is shown is covered in what a customer sees when an order ships in two parcels.

Flat, free or carrier-calculated?

Shopify names three main rate strategies at checkout (flat rate, free shipping and carrier-calculated shipping) and, for dropshipping, lists five ways businesses can handle the fee a supplier charges:

• offer free shipping and have the shipping costs come out of their profits;
• offer free shipping and increase the price of their products;
• charge a low flat shipping rate and slightly increase the cost of the products;
• charge the customer a flat shipping rate;
• pass on the exact cost of shipping to the customer.

Carrier-calculated rates fit dropshipping least, for three reasons:

• "App locations don't have a physical address, so carrier-calculated shipping rates can't use them to calculate shipping rates."
• Per Shopify's shipping rates setup page, they "display expected transit time, but they don't include your processing time," and in dropshipping the processing time is the supplier's.
• With them, Shopify says: "You can't display shipping rates before checkout."

Choosing between the three rate types for your catalog has its own guide: which rate type fits your catalog.

Delivery dates when a supplier ships

Shopify's built-in delivery dates have limits here: manual delivery dates are available on all plans, but Shopify's manual delivery dates page states: "This feature does not support third-party dropshipping apps." Automated dates need the Basic plan or higher, an active location in a supported country and at least one fulfilled domestic order, among other requirements. Put the times in your shipping policy either way; switching the built-in dates on is covered in can Shopify show estimated delivery dates without an app.

What Does Shopify Payments Review on a Dropshipping Store?

There are two separate questions: whether you can activate Shopify Payments at all, which depends on where your business is and what it sells, and whether payouts keep arriving once you trade, which depends on how the store behaves.

The Shopify Payments terms and the eligibility, acceptable business practices, reserves and account holds pages, read on October 10, 2026, do not use the word dropshipping. Adyen's list of prohibited and restricted products and services, which Shopify's processor list names, alongside Stripe and PayPal entities, for the United Kingdom and other countries in its EMEA table, marks "Drop shipping" as restricted, and its legend explains the mark: "We will require additional documentation prior to onboarding." For the United States, the processor list names Stripe and PayPal, not Adyen.

Shopify's Help Center page for Przelewy24, a local payment method for customers in Poland that, per the same page, isn't available for new activations through Shopify Payments, lists "Dropshipping businesses" among those prohibited from offering Przelewy24 at checkout; the bar is on offering Przelewy24, not on using Shopify Payments. The Shopify Payments terms say restricted businesses "require additional review and approval by us to use the Payments Services" and that the restricted categories "are provided by each Payment Processor in your Designated Country"; the pages we read are listed in the box at the end of Staying paid.

Getting approved: country and business type

The condition. "You can use Shopify Payments to accept payments at checkout if your business is located in one of the supported countries listed on this page." By our count that list holds 40 countries and regions as of October 10, 2026; the number is our tally, not a figure Shopify prints.

Where to check. The list for your country, and Shopify's eligibility page for the business side, which warns: "There are certain business models that, while legal, Shopify Payments can't support." India, Pakistan and South Africa do not appear in the supported list on the pages we read on October 10, 2026.

If you don't qualify. "If your country isn't listed, or if Shopify Payments doesn't support your business category, then you need to use a third-party payment provider." Three things follow from that:

• Shopify charges a third-party transaction fee that depends on your plan. Its pricing page lists 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced and 0.2% on Plus.
• These fees "are in addition to processing fees charged by your third-party payment provider," and Shopify's page on third-party payment providers says they apply to all transactions processed through third-party and alternate payment gateways, even when Shopify Payments is activated, except that PayPal transactions are exempt if you elect to use Shopify Payments as your primary payment provider.
• One detour is closed: according to Shopify's page on payment gateway availability, if you can't activate Shopify Payments in a supported country, "for example, because of what you sell, then standalone Stripe isn't available as an alternative."

Activating Shopify Payments step by step is in our Shopify Payments guide.

Choosing a third-party gateway and working out the surcharge on your volume is in our payment gateways comparison.

Staying paid: what Shopify reviews

Approval is not the end of review. Shopify's page on acceptable business practices describes what a bad review leads to.

The same page lists what a review looks at, and your supplier's performance feeds at least two of its points: "Shipping and fulfillment timelines compared to promises" and "Clear communication with customers when something changes, such as delays, stock issues, or updates to pricing or policies." It adds that unreliable fulfillment "can indicate elevated risk to customers even when chargeback rates are low."

Three restrictions are worth knowing before you meet them:

• Reserve: "a temporary hold on a portion, in some cases a full amount, of transactions processed through Shopify Payments for a specified period," per Shopify's reserves page; its listed factors include industries with extended delivery timelines.
• Account hold: "you can't receive payouts through Shopify Payments until the reason for the hold is resolved," says the account holds page.
• Custom payout schedule: it "might be imposed for higher-risk businesses," and the acceptable business practices page adds that payouts might take from 5 to 20 business days.

The reserves, account holds and acceptable business practices pages do not name dropshipping, so we do not say the model belongs in any of those groups. But if you pay your supplier when each order is placed, a longer wait for payouts is working capital you have to hold.

A late parcel becomes a loss in a dispute. Shopify isn't liable for chargebacks, and the Shopify Payments Terms of Service say: "Your liability will include the full purchase price of the item plus the original shipping cost (and in some cases you may not receive the item back)." What to do when one lands is in our chargebacks guide.

When should you capture payment?

Capture is when the customer is charged. Shopify's page on managing payments for orders says payments are captured automatically when an order is placed by default, "but you can configure your store to capture payments manually so you can review orders before charging customers." The setting is in Settings > Payments, in the Payment capture method section.

Zoom

Shopify lists four capture methods, and for a dropshipping store they are not equally safe.

If you wait, you are on a clock. With Shopify Payments on the standard setup, the authorization period is 7 days, and the same page says: "You need to capture a payment within the authorization period to collect money for your order."

It also warns that an automatic capture setting in Shopify plus a third-party app that captures payment automatically "can lead to potential conflicts and unexpected behavior."

Who Pays Duties When the Supplier Ships Across a Border?

If your supplier and your customer are in the same country, skip to policies. Otherwise someone pays to cross the border, and Shopify's dropshipping page says "you must be aware of the tax and customs obligations that apply to cross-border sales."

For shipments to the United States, the low-value exemption is not available as of October 2026. A notice that US Customs and Border Protection published on October 8, 2026 gives the three dates that matter:

• August 29, 2025. "The de minimis exemption has been suspended since at least August 29, 2025."
• June 24, 2026. Interim final rules announced the indefinite suspension of the exemption in CBP's regulations, effective that day.
• July 1, 2027. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act terminated the exemption by statute effective on this date, which is still ahead as of October 2026.

Shopify's customs fees page draws the conclusion: "Duties and import taxes apply to all US imports, regardless of the value of the shipment." What is in force today is a suspension, and nothing in your setup waits on the 2027 date. The orders behind it are laid out in the tariff section of our Alibaba sourcing guide.

Who hands the money over depends on the shipping terms. "Carriers collect these fees either from the seller or the customer, depending on the incoterms that are used for the shipment," says Shopify's page on carriers and shipping terms: under DDP the seller takes on the import costs, under DAP the customer pays them. The supplier ships the parcel, so ask the supplier which it is before you write a word of policy.

For "an international merchant that sells to the United States, or a US merchant that uses a dropshipping model," Shopify lists six actions:

• Add HS codes and country of origin to all your products.
• Review your product pricing to evaluate offsetting incremental costs.
• Consider collecting duties and import taxes at checkout.
• Determine your shipping fulfillment strategies, such as using Delivered Duties Paid (DDP) labels.
• Update your shipping and returns policies to reflect fulfillment choices.
• Adjust and review your checkout settings to test the checkout experience for US customers.

Collecting duties at checkout needs a carrier that supports DDP labels if your store uses shipping labels, no Shopify Fulfillment Network, and HS codes on products; the order then has to go out on a DDP label, so confirm your supplier ships that way.

The transaction fee for calculating duties and import taxes "has been temporarily lowered to 0.5%" effective February 2, 2025; "temporarily" is Shopify's word, so treat it as the rate as of October 2026.

If you sell into the EU from a supplier outside it, Shopify's guidance points to the Import One-Stop Shop, set up in Settings > Taxes and Duties > European Union, so that VAT on low-value orders is collected at checkout. The EU's customs rules for low-value parcels changed on July 1, 2026; the cost per order is worked through in our EU landed-cost guide.

Sales tax is a separate question this guide does not answer; for US stores, what to switch on in Shopify and in which order is in our US sales tax guide.

Which Policies Does a Dropshipping Store Need?

Shopify's Terms of Service set the floor: "You acknowledge and agree to provide public-facing contact information, terms of service, a refund policy, and shipping policies (including order fulfilment timelines) on your Shopify Store."

In Settings > Policies you can manage seven store policies, and Shopify can automate four of them: the return and refund policy, terms of service, shipping policy and contact information. Its templates "are for informational purposes only, aren't legal advice, and don't guarantee compliance with applicable laws," so check each one against what your supplier actually does.

A shipping policy the supplier can keep

Two sentences from Shopify's legal guidance for dropshippers set the content. "Under Shopify's Terms of Service, you must add publicly accessible processing and shipping information to your online store," and "you must communicate order details such as shipping times, and additional fees, including import or customs charges, before the customer completes a purchase." The policy should state four things:

• Processing time and delivery time, as two separate numbers from your sample order. Shopify's rule for store policies: "Don't promise delivery or shipping times that you can't provide."
• Import and customs charges. If you import products from abroad into another country, Shopify says it's important to accurately state that the products are imported and might be subject to customs clearance. Say who pays.
• Who ships, and from where. Shopify calls it good practice to tell customers that products will be shipped by a third party and the shipping origin, and its Terms of Service say: "You should inform your customers if you use a third-party supplier."
• What happens when something slips. "After the customer places their order, you should let them know if there's a delay or change to their order."

A refund policy that says who takes the return

"Under Shopify's Terms of Service, you must add a publicly accessible refund policy that's current and accurate for your online store." The consequence is spelled out: "If you fail to provide a current and accurate refund policy, then Shopify might take action against your account, up to and including termination." Shopify calls it good practice to include five things:

• the timeframe in which a product must be returned;
• the address where a return needs to be sent;
• the cost of returning a product, and who pays for the return;
• that the time it takes to get a refund might depend on where the customer lives in relation to your location;
• contact information that a customer can use if they don't receive a refund in a timely manner.

The second and third are the dropshipping questions: agree the return address and who pays with your supplier before the policy is published. Shopify's guidance also notes that customers in the EEA "usually have 14 days after the delivery of an online product to return the product for a full refund."

Switching on self-serve returns and return rules in the admin is covered in our returns and cancellations guide.

How long do you legally have to ship?

Two legal systems put numbers on the promise. The table describes the rules as the regulators publish them and is not legal advice; whether they reach a seller based outside the US or the UK, and what other countries require, are questions for a legal adviser.

The FTC's Q&A on using a fulfillment house or drop-shipper answers whose fault a late parcel is: the seller is liable.

The same guide adds three things a dropshipper can use:

• Your stated time may include the hand-off. The seller "can adjust the shipment representations to include the time needed to transmit orders to a fulfillment house and for the fulfillment house to respond."
• What FTC staff weigh before recommending an enforcement action. Among the factors are "contracting with the fulfillment house to require it to comply with the Rule" and "seeding" orders with it to monitor its fulfillment time. These are factors, not a safe harbour.
• A cap on silence about a delay. The guide says "no notification to the customer can take longer than the time you originally promised or, if no time was promised, 30 days."

In the UK a second clock runs after delivery: for distance sales the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 end the cancellation period "at the end of 14 days after the day on which the goods come into the physical possession of" the consumer, with exceptions. Per the government's guidance on distance selling, a customer you did not tell about that right "can cancel at any time in the next 12 months."

How Does an Order Reach Your Supplier?

Shopify's Help Center describes the range without picking a winner. Of dropshipping apps it says: "Some automatically mark items as fulfilled when they ship an order. Others require you to order your customer's items within the app. Contact your app's developer to determine the best workflow." A supplier on a custom fulfillment service gets an email instead.

Automatic or manual fulfillment?

"By default, your store uses manual fulfillment," says Shopify's order processing page, which suggests automatic fulfillment "when you exclusively sell digital downloads or gift cards, or you use fulfillment services for all of your products." A wholly dropshipped store fits that; a store that also packs some orders itself does not. The switch is in Settings > General, in the Order processing section.

Once a request has gone to a fulfillment service, the order status in your admin stops being a lever.

The service can still ship, and you can end up paying for both the product and its fulfillment; to change an order after that point you have to cancel the fulfillment request first.

Check the fraud analysis before the supplier is paid

A fraudulent dropshipping order costs you the product and the supplier's shipping fee before any dispute arrives. Shopify's fraud analysis page sets out what you can see: "Fraud indicators and support for third-party fraud prevention apps are available on the Basic plan or higher." It adds: "Fraud recommendations are available on the Grow plan or higher, or if you use Shopify Payments."

With a third-party payment processor, Shopify tells you to check with them about any fraud analysis limitations.

A medium-risk flag is the harder call, because it is neither a pass nor a stop. How to verify one before you ship is in should you fulfill a medium-risk Shopify order.

How tracking gets back to the customer

With a fulfillment service connected by an app, tracking information the service provides is "automatically added to the order." A custom fulfillment service is the exception: per Shopify's custom fulfillment page, such services "don't automatically update the order status in your Shopify admin," so you enter the tracking number yourself. Either way the tracking number is displayed in the shipping confirmation email and shipping update emails; sending the shipping confirmation is an optional setting when the order is fulfilled, and once a tracking number is present the delivery status comes from the carrier.

How Do You Test and Launch?

A test order is the one step that checks all the others together. Shopify's test orders page puts it this way: "By placing a test order, you can make sure that your checkout process and settings for order processing, inventory, shipping, email notifications, and taxes are all correct."

1. Deactivate the fulfillment service or app first. Shopify's page on processing test orders says: "If you use a fulfillment service or an app that automatically fulfills orders, then deactivate it before you create test orders." Skip this and, on our reading, the test order goes to your supplier.
2. Place the order as a customer would, with products from each supplier in the cart, and read what the store did: the shipping rate, the confirmation email, the inventory count and the tax line.
3. Reactivate the fulfillment service or app if you plan to run with it; Shopify adds that if you want to test fulfillment, you should cancel the fulfillment or order before re-activating the service.

One cost survives into testing: "Transaction fees apply to any checkout that calculates duties and import taxes, including test orders," according to Shopify's duties considerations page. The test methods themselves (Shopify Payments test mode, the Test payment gateway, or a real order you refund) are in how to place a test order on Shopify.

Launch has a short official list. "Before you can launch your store, you must complete the following required steps":

• choose a plan;
• add your business address in Business details;
• set up a payment method, and make sure that test mode is deactivated.

Then the password. If your store is on a trial plan or doesn't have a business address yet, the Shopify app prompts you to complete that step before you can remove your password.

Where Dropshipping Setups Go Wrong

Each row is a specific setting, the step where it lives, and what the cited documentation says happens.

The Dropshipping Setup Checklist

Every route uses all nine steps; what changes is the weight:

• App route: step four is where most of the work is.
• Collective route: do step five before step two, because Collective needs Shopify Payments with active payouts before you can connect with suppliers.
• Email-order supplier: step seven carries the tracking work an app would have done.
• Supplier ships across a border: read the duties section before step six, which carries the disclosure check.

The Bottom Line

Nothing in this setup is hard to find in the admin. What makes it go wrong is that the settings promise things on a supplier's behalf (a delivery window, a return address, a shipping price) and the admin accepts any promise you type.

Frequently Asked Questions