You don’t need to hold inventory to operate a successful online toy store. With dropshipping, you curate a selection of toys for your audience, and a third party handles warehousing and shipping.
Sales of toys and games through online channels accounted for about 46% of global toy revenue in 2025, and online sales are projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.5% from 2026 to 2033, according to Grand View Research. Dropshipping is one way to join the growing kids’ toy market without taking on inventory risks.
In this article, you’ll learn the advantages and disadvantages of dropshipping toys so you can decide if this model is right for you. You’ll also learn about the top-selling toy categories and how to get started, with tips from the owner of baby and kids’ toys store EasyTot.
What is dropshipping?
Dropshipping is an ecommerce business model in which a company runs an online storefront without stocking products or fulfilling orders. Dropshippers work with manufacturers or wholesalers who source, manufacture, and ship the products directly to customers.
Advantages of dropshipping toys
If you want to sell toys online, dropshipping has several advantages, including:
A large, diverse product range
Dropshippers can offer expansive catalogs of products from many different brands. For example, EasyTot has 6,684 toys across categories like educational and interactive toys, sensory toys, bath toys, puzzles, baby products, plush toys, and climbing toys.
EasyTot owner Francesca (who goes by her first name) says she wouldn’t be able to offer as many products if she had chosen a different business model. “Where would you even store so many products?” she says.
“[Dropshipping is] a model where you can very quickly expand into many different brands and have a very large catalog. You’re selling an experience where customers can access a lot of products that they can identify with,” Francesca says.
No inventory risks
Dropshipping toys eliminates the risk of dead stock, which ties up working capital and adds storage costs. For Francesca, dropshipping means she can offer products she likes, without feeling the pressure of needing to move inventory.
“It really doesn’t matter if [the product] doesn’t do well,” she says. “I don’t specifically chase the ‘hit’ product.”
Quicker launch
Developing products is a lengthy process that includes validating your product idea, creating a prototype, beta testing, and iterating. When you dropship toys, you can skip those steps and more quickly launch your business.
If you use Shopify, the fastest way to get started dropshipping is to download a dropshipping app from the Shopify App Store. Once connected, you can manage your dropshipping products straight from your Shopify admin.
Drawbacks of dropshipping toys
Dropshipping toys also has its disadvantages, such as:
No control over inventory
When you dropship products, someone else controls inventory and fulfillment. “If there is a problem with a third party, you’re taking accountability, and you may have no way of fixing the problem at the time other than giving a refund,” Francesca says.
EasyTot works exclusively with smaller brands who don’t always have the same operational capacities as bigger brands. “Unlike large companies, the operations may not be 100% smooth,” she says.
“They may have small teams. They may run into bottlenecks. There could be problems, like they change warehouses, so maybe, for a couple of weeks, shipping is suspended. This operational side [of dropshipping] … takes a lot of time to sort out,” Francesca says.
Harder to work with recognizable brands
One reason EasyTot primarily sells toys from small businesses is because bigger, more established brands typically don’t make their products available for dropshipping.
“Large brands ... already have their established distribution systems,” Francesca says. “It doesn’t make sense for them to sell to individual retailers that operate online. That’s why our area of focus is more independent brands.”
Results can be slow
In Francesca’s experience, dropshipping toys is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Instead, it’s something you’re in for the long haul.
“It’s not the type of activity where you can say, ‘OK, I can easily quit my job,’ and that’s going to be how you maintain your family,” she says. “Take it as a project that you want to pursue and improve over time and have a very long horizon.”
Bestselling toys to dropship
The best toys to dropship depend on your niche. Francesca, for example, fills her store with toys that look nice and have educational value.
These categories have proven most successful for EasyTot:
Montessori-style toys
Montessori is an educational system developed by Italian educator Maria Montessori in the early 1900s. Montessori schools focus on child-directed learning, often through colorful, well-made toys.
Their aesthetic appeal has made Montessori-style toys popular even outside of Montessori schools. According to Google Trends, searches for Montessori toys have nearly tripled since 2019.
Francesca’s favorite brand of Montessori-style toys is Green Elephant. Their rainbow stepping stones set is EasyTot’s bestselling product and accounted for around 30% of sales during the 2025 holiday season.
At $50, the stepping stones set is part of the fastest-growing toy price segment in the US. In 2025, toys priced $30 to $69.99 grew 18% year over year.
Francesca attributes the stepping stones’ success to being a newer kind of toy that lets kids play creatively. “They’re made out of a particular type of rigid foam,” she says. “Kids can jump and practice balance, but they can also stack them to make little chairs.”
Motor skills toys
These types of toys help with fine motor skills, such as hand-eye coordination. EasyTot’s most popular motor skills toy is a flower-shaped balance board, also from Green Elephant. The board is a complementary product that works with stepping stones or on its own.
Wooden toys
Most of the toys on EasyTot are wooden. “I have this principle that a toy needs to be educational, and it also needs to be aesthetically pleasing,” Francesca says. “I think wooden toys reflect what customers that shop on EasyTot typically want, and also what I prefer.”
One of EasyTot’s top sellers in the wooden toy category is the Levo baby rocker from Charlie Crane. The ergonomic rocker has an all-wood construction and Scandinavian-inspired design.
Imaginative play toys
The toys in this category let kids use their imaginations. One of EasyTot’s bestsellers is the rainbow soft sword from Sarah’s Silks, which is made of stiff foam covered in rainbow silk and encourages open-ended play.
STEAM toys
STEAM toys promote play around science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics. According to the Toy Association, 60% of US parents prefer toys that build STEAM skills.
EasyTot’s best-selling STEAM toy is this walkie-talkie building kit from Kitsville. In the US, sales of building sets increased by 57% from 2021 to 2025, per Circana data published by the Toy Association.
Francesca likes Kitsville because their kits are made with wood. “Traditionally, you don’t think that a STEAM toy could be made out of wood, because, for STEAM toys, you often need small parts,” Francesca says. Wooden STEAM kits align with EasyTot’s two core principles: aesthetic appeal and educational value.
How to get started with dropshipping toys
- Create a website
- Establish your niche
- Find reliable suppliers
- Connect your supplier to your website
- Pick your products
- Optimize your listings
- Market your store
Follow these steps to start dropshipping toys:
1. Create a website
While it’s possible to dropship without a website by selling on marketplaces like Amazon, creating your own website gives you more control over your branding and customer data—plus, a greater share of the profits.
To build your site, choose an ecommerce platform that supports your dropshipping goals. Francesca used Shopify to build EasyTot. She sources most of her toys through Shopify Collective, which connects to her Shopify admin with the free Shopify Collective app.
Choose from one of more than 800 themes available from the Shopify Theme Store (EasyTot uses the Prestige theme), or use Shopify’s AI site builder, which generates a custom site in minutes based on your shop’s description.
2. Establish your niche
Your niche will determine what kind of toys you stock and which dropshipping suppliers you work with. Francesca decided to focus on toys for younger children, since she was a new mom when she launched her business.
Francesca also wanted toys that looked good, so it wouldn’t matter if kids left them scattered around the home. Plus, she chose educational toys that promoted learning, which led her to working with brands like Green Elephant.
3. Find reliable suppliers
There are several ways to work with a supplier. You can use a dropshipping marketplace like Shopify Collective or AliExpress, or you can reach out to brands you admire.
Francesca sources most of her products through Shopify Collective, but also browses the wholesale marketplace Faire.
When choosing a supplier, consider shipping speeds, product quality, and performance history. Read reviews to learn about each supplier's strengths and weaknesses.
4. Connect your supplier to your website
Connect your supplier to your website so they automatically receive an order when a customer checks out.
Follow these steps to get started with Shopify Collective:
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Go to the Shopify Collective page and select “Get Started” at the top. It’ll ask you whether you want to join as a retailer or supplier. Choose “Get retailer app.”
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Log into your Shopify admin and pick what website you want to install Shopify Collective.
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Shopify Collective will appear under your apps, and you can begin to search for the products and suppliers you want to add to your website.
If your supplier doesn’t integrate with your ecommerce platform, you may have to forward orders to your dropshipping partner.
5. Pick your products
Dropshippers use different techniques to find their products, such as looking at what’s trending on social media or looking at a list of popular items on their dropship partner’s website.
Francesca doesn’t worry about trending toys. Instead, she ensures the products she lists on her website match her brand identity. “Typically, there are catalogs of wholesale brands that I analyze,” she says. “I see if they fit into our aesthetic and values. Then, they get added.”
“What matters the most is that for any toy dropship store, all the inventory needs to be consistent,” she says. “If you’re looking at brand A next to brand B, they seem like it could be the same [brand].”
6. Optimize your listings
When working with dropship brands, products can come with generic or long titles. Francesca believes spending time on creating useful product listings is necessary. To help speed up the process, Francesca uses artificial intelligence.
“If you think about the perspective of trying to meet the customer need, a [generic title for a doll] doesn’t mean anything,” she says. “[AI] looks at the description. It looks at the title. It looks at the image, and then generates a blurb that describes what it is. It may extract size. It may extract material, and other features of the doll to make sure people who search can actually find it.”
For example, for one doll listing, EasyTot uses the doll’s name and material in the title to provide context. When a customer opens the product page, they can see more detail about the product’s size, suitable age range, and benefits.
Francesca says being specific is also useful for Google Shopping, a product discovery tool.
“You can leverage Google Shopping by optimizing the product feed and changing a very basic title. Often, these small brands that we work with may not have the expertise to properly market the product. That’s where the dropshipper … can come in by improving the discoverability of what they have,” she says.
To get listed on Google Shopping, submit a feed of product information. Google Shopping will then pull directly from your listing, so if you change prices, it’ll be reflected on the tool.
7. Market your store
There are many ways to market your store. For example, you can launch a TikTok Shop (and connect it to your Shopify store) and create videos to promote your products. Or you can take out ads.
Francesca primarily relies on search engine optimization (SEO). By making her products easy to find on search engines like Google, she can attract customers without needing to take out paid ads or invest heavily in social media marketing.
The right marketing strategy for your toy store will depend on your target audience and business goals.
Dropship toys FAQ
Is dropshipping toys profitable?
Dropshipping toys can be profitable because startup costs are low, but Francesca of EasyTot cautions against starting a toy dropshipping business for the money alone. “This is the kind of business where you have to be in for the long haul, because you’re not gonna get rich quick,” she says.
What is the most profitable item to dropship?
Profitability in dropshipping is all about finding trustworthy dropshipping suppliers to create quality goods, then properly marketing those products to the right audience. Establishing a reputable online store and striving for quality products will result in higher customer satisfaction. So instead of searching for the single most profitable item, it may be wiser to set up a well-run company with a sensible niche.
Can you make $1,000 a month dropshipping?
There is no real limit to your profit as a dropshipper, as it will depend on your ability to read market trends, advertise effectively, maintain a relationship with reputable suppliers and manufacturers, and carve out a niche. Your income ultimately will depend on your success in these categories, and on how active you are at running the company. Some dropshippers treat their business as a side hustle, while others commit themselves full time.
