Dropshipping in NZ: an honest guide before you start
· 7 MIN READ
How dropshipping works in NZ, the shipping, GST and consumer law issues offshore suppliers create, local sourcing, platforms, and whether it can still pay.
Dropshipping in NZ gets sold as an easy online business: open a store, list products from an overseas supplier, and let them ship directly to your customers. The model is real and some people run it well, but the version in most online courses skips the parts that matter here: long shipping times, GST, and New Zealand consumer law, which makes you responsible for products you have never touched.
This guide is an honest look at how dropshipping works for a New Zealand business, what can go wrong, and how to give yourself a fair chance.
How dropshipping works
- You list a product in your online store at a price you set.
- A customer orders and pays you.
- You pass the order to your supplier and pay them their price.
- The supplier ships the product directly to your customer.
- You keep the difference, minus platform fees, payment fees, advertising, refunds and your time.
You never hold stock, which is the appeal. But to the customer, you are the seller. Every delay, wrong item, broken product and refund request lands with you, not the supplier.
NZ-specific issues with dropshipping
Shipping times from overseas
Most dropshipping products come from overseas suppliers, and delivery to New Zealand can take weeks, sometimes longer when there are delays at customs or with freight. New Zealand shoppers are used to buying from overseas, but they are also used to local stores delivering in days. If your store looks local and delivers like an overseas marketplace, expect complaints, chargebacks and poor reviews.
Be upfront. Put realistic delivery times on every product page and in your checkout, and say where the item ships from. That honesty costs you some sales and saves you a lot of disputes.
GST on imported goods
GST is where dropshipping gets complicated in New Zealand. Overseas businesses selling low-value goods to New Zealand consumers may be required to register and collect GST, and if you are a New Zealand GST-registered business selling goods shipped from overseas, the treatment of those sales depends on how the transaction is structured, who imports the goods and their value.
We are not going to guess at your position, and you should not either. Before you take your first order, ask an accountant how GST applies to your setup, and check Inland Revenue's guidance on goods imported by or for New Zealand consumers. Getting this wrong can mean paying GST you never collected.
Consumer Guarantees Act and Fair Trading Act
If you sell to New Zealand consumers in trade, you are the supplier for the purposes of consumer law, even if someone else ships the product. In general terms, that means:
- Under the Consumer Guarantees Act, products must be of acceptable quality, fit for purpose, match their description and arrive within a reasonable time. If they do not, the customer's remedy is against you, regardless of what your supplier will or will not do.
- Under the Fair Trading Act, you cannot make misleading claims about products, prices, origin or delivery, and you need reasonable grounds for the claims you do make. Copying a supplier's product description does not protect you if that description is wrong.
- Online sellers who are in trade generally need to make that clear to customers. Do not present a business as a private seller.
- Product safety rules apply. Some product categories have mandatory safety standards or bans in New Zealand, and cheap imported products in categories like children's products, electrical goods and cosmetics are where problems turn up.
Returns
Returns are hard when the product came from overseas. Many suppliers will not accept returns at all, or only at the customer's cost to an overseas address. Under consumer law, a faulty product is your problem, so you often end up refunding the customer and writing off the item. Build that cost into your prices, and write a returns policy that is honest and consistent with the Consumer Guarantees Act. You cannot contract out of the Act when selling to consumers, so a policy that says no refunds is not just unhelpful, it can be misleading.
Can I be sued for dropshipping?
Dropshipping itself is legal in New Zealand. The risk comes from what you sell and how you sell it. You can face claims, complaints to the Commerce Commission or enforcement action if you sell faulty or unsafe products, make misleading claims, refuse remedies the law requires, or sell counterfeit goods or products that infringe someone's trademark or copyright. Using another brand's images or product photos without permission is a common way dropshippers get into trouble.
The practical protection is choosing reputable suppliers, testing products yourself before listing them, writing your own accurate descriptions and policies, and treating customers as fairly as the law requires. Our privacy policy generator helps with one of the documents every store needs under the Privacy Act 2020.
Sourcing locally vs offshore
| Offshore suppliers | New Zealand suppliers | |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery time | Often weeks | Usually days |
| Product cost | Usually lower | Usually higher |
| Returns | Difficult and often uneconomic | Much more manageable |
| Quality control | Hard to check | Easier to visit, sample and verify |
| Competition | The same products are sold by many stores | Fewer competitors with identical stock |
Some New Zealand wholesalers and manufacturers will dropship for retailers if you ask, even if they do not advertise it. Margins are thinner, but faster delivery, easier returns and products that are not on every other store make it a sounder business. A hybrid is also common: hold a small stock of your best sellers locally and dropship the long tail.
Platforms for dropshipping in NZ
Most dropshippers use Shopify, because supplier apps connect to it directly and pass orders through automatically. Our complete guide to Shopify in New Zealand covers payments, GST settings and shipping setup for local stores. WooCommerce is an option if you already run WordPress and are comfortable managing it, and general website builders in New Zealand can work for very small ranges.
Whatever platform you use, check how supplier apps handle stock levels, price changes and tracking numbers. Selling a product your supplier has run out of is one of the fastest ways to collect refund requests.
How can a beginner start?
- Pick a niche you understand, where you can write genuinely useful product information and answer customer questions.
- Find suppliers, ideally including New Zealand ones, and order samples. Check quality, packaging and real delivery time to a New Zealand address.
- Talk to an accountant about GST and your business structure before your first sale.
- Set up your store with honest delivery times, a returns policy that reflects consumer law, and your own product descriptions and photos where possible.
- Plan how you will get traffic. Paid ads are the usual route, and a focused landing page for each campaign will usually convert better than sending ad clicks to your homepage.
- Start small, track every cost per order, and only scale what is actually profitable after refunds.
Can I still make money with dropshipping?
Some people do, but it is harder than the courses suggest, and we are not going to put a number on it. The easy version (copy a trending product, run ads, sell to anyone) is crowded, and the cost of advertising, refunds and payment disputes often eats the margin. The stores that last tend to look less like classic dropshipping: a specific niche, better suppliers (often local), honest delivery times, original content, and a brand customers come back to.
If you are serious about building something lasting, think of dropshipping as a way to test demand before holding stock, not as the whole business. And if you get to the point of wanting a properly built store, our ecommerce website design page explains how we work, or you can contact us to talk it through.