EMPIRE / Dropshipping

Dropshipping, without the app-store tax.

Import a catalogue, set your markup, and let paid orders route themselves to your supplier. Included in your plan — no separate app subscriptions, no per-order fee.

Plain kraft shipping boxes, open and closed
A stylised trolley stacked with parcels
A miniature trolley and parcels resting on a keyboard
$0Inventory to buy
CSVBulk catalogue import
AutoOrders routed to supplier
LiveProfit on every order
Import

Bring a whole catalogue at once

Upload a CSV of supplier products with costs and you have a store. No copying listings one at a time, no app subscription to do it.

Price

Markup rules, not guesswork

Set a multiplier and retail prices are calculated from cost automatically. Change the rule, reprice the catalogue.

Fulfil

Orders route themselves

A paid order goes straight to the right supplier with the buyer's address attached. You don't touch it.

How it works

  1. Add your products with their cost. One at a time, or a CSV of the whole catalogue.
  2. Set your markup. Retail prices calculate from cost, so your margin is a decision rather than an accident.
  3. A customer buys. Payment settles to your bank through Stripe — we never hold it.
  4. The order routes to your supplier automatically, with the shipping address attached.
  5. Your dashboard shows the profit on that order, not just the revenue.

Cost tracking that's actually useful

Most platforms only track what you charged. That tells you revenue, which is the number that flatters you and pays no bills.

EMPIRE stores a cost against every product, so the dashboard can show what you actually made — per order and across the store — with card fees already deducted. When you type a price, you see the margin update as you type.

If you want to run the numbers before you build anything, the margin calculator and break-even calculator are free and need no account.

Suppliers

Print-on-demand is connected directly. Link a Printify account and orders are created, produced, and shipped automatically with tracking sent to your customer.

Any other supplier works through order routing. Add the supplier's fulfilment address and every paid order for their products is sent to them the moment it's placed, formatted and ready to fulfil. This works with any supplier who can accept an order by email — which is nearly all of them, including the ones with no API at all.

We're honest about the distinction: direct integrations are automatic end-to-end, routing is automatic up to the point the supplier receives it. Both remove the part that actually eats your day, which is re-typing orders.

What it costs

Dropshipping is included in Commerce ($14/mo) and above. There is no separate dropshipping app, no per-order fee from us, and no percentage of your sales.

You pay Stripe's processing fee on each sale — currently 2.9% + $0.30 — and your supplier's cost. That's the whole picture. Compare that to running the same setup elsewhere, where the import app, the pricing-rule app, and the fulfilment app each carry their own monthly subscription.

The honest part

We'd rather you succeed than sign up, so here's what the courses tend to skip:

  • Margins are thin. You're buying single units at near-retail. 20-30% is normal. The 300% figures in ads are not.
  • Shipping time is your reputation. A customer waiting three weeks blames you, not your supplier. Ask about fulfilment times before you list anything.
  • Order samples. The first time you see the product should not be when a customer complains about it.
  • Agree the returns process up front. Who pays return postage is a conversation to have before your first sale, not after. Our policy generator will draft the page once you've decided.
  • Anyone can sell the same product. With no exclusivity, your edge is brand, service, and audience — not the catalogue.

It's a real business with real margins, and it works. It just isn't passive. If you want a straight answer about whether your numbers work, call 402-206-4827 before you spend anything.

Start a store