Dropshipping grow kits: how it works for a European webshop

Dropshipping grow kits means your webshop sells the kit, and the producer ships it straight from its own stock to your customer, so you never hold living products yourself. You own the customer, the marketing and the price; the producer owns production, storage and packing. What you cannot hand off is responsibility for where you sell: the law in your customer’s country and the VAT on the sale stay with you.

How does a dropship order travel from checkout to doorstep?

A dropship order is a chain of handovers, and most problems happen at one of them. The usual sequence looks like this:

1
Your customer orders and pays in your webshop, at your retail price.
2
You pass the order to the producer, through their B2B portal or another agreed route, with the delivery address and the product codes.
3
The producer invoices you at your partner price. The difference between your retail price and that invoice is your gross margin.
4
The producer picks, packs and ships from its own stock. For grow kits that means a product that has been colonising under controlled conditions until it leaves.
5
You receive the tracking details and send them to your customer.
6
Your customer contacts you, not the producer, with questions or problems. You decide whether to handle it yourself or pass it on under the claims procedure you agreed.

Ask your supplier at step 2 how orders are best submitted at your volume, and at step 4 whether parcels go out in neutral packaging and with which paperwork inside. Those two answers decide how much the setup feels like your own brand to the customer.

Who is responsible for what?

The split of tasks is the part to agree in writing before you go live. This is a typical division; your agreement may shift some lines.

TaskYour webshopThe producer
Product photos and textsPublishes, adapts to your brandSupplies source material and legal framing
Retail priceSets itNot involved
Checking destination lawYes, per country you sell toMay refuse countries it does not ship to
Age check at checkoutYesNot involved
Order submissionYes, accurate and completeProcesses it
Storage, picking, packingNot involvedYes
Shipping and trackingPasses tracking to customerShips and provides tracking
Customer serviceFirst point of contactSecond line, through claims procedure
VAT on the sale to the consumerYes, as the sellerInvoices you for its B2B sale

The last row surprises many new shops. In a dropship setup you are the seller to the consumer, so the consumer VAT is yours to handle, not the producer’s.

What about VAT when your customers are in other EU countries?

Since 1 July 2021, an EU-wide threshold of EUR 10,000 applies to cross-border sales of goods to consumers in other EU countries, according to the European Commission. Above it, you charge the VAT rate of the customer’s country. The One Stop Shop (OSS) lets you declare and pay that VAT through a single registration in your own member state instead of registering in every country.

How this applies to a dropship flow, where goods leave from another member state than yours, depends on your setup. Discuss it with your accountant before your first cross-border sale. It affects your prices, because the VAT rate differs per country while your customer sees one price.

Which countries can you sell grow kits to?

You can only sell to countries where grow kits are legal to sell and to receive, and that differs per country. In the Netherlands, grow kits are not prohibited, according to Jellinek (checked October 2026). That says nothing about Germany, France or any other market you plan to sell to.

Check every destination before you open it

Do not open a country in your checkout until you have checked the law there for each product you list. Some countries treat grow kits, spores or truffles very differently from the Netherlands, and a parcel seized by customs is the mild outcome. Producers also refuse countries; if your supplier will not ship somewhere, remove that country from your shop. This is general information, not legal advice.

The legal status overview for Europe shows the general picture, and our article on how to choose a mycology supplier covers the questions to ask about which countries a supplier ships to.

When does dropshipping suit a grow kit webshop, and when not?

Dropshipping suits a webshop that wants to test the category, carries a long strain list, or has no cool and stable storage space. You avoid buying stock of a living product that has a limited time on the shelf, and you can list more strains than you would dare to stock yourself.

It suits you less when:

  • you want to combine grow kits with other products from your own warehouse in one parcel;
  • you sell mostly in a physical shop, where the customer wants to take the kit home today;
  • your brand depends on your own packaging and inserts in every box.

In those cases, wholesale stock for your shop, or fulfillment through the producer, may fit better. Some shops combine both: popular strains on the shelf, the rest dropshipped.

What should you set up before your first dropship order?

Most of the work happens before the first order, not after it. Run through this list:

  • ☐ Partner account approved and access to the order portal
  • ☐ Partner prices and any minimums known, so you can set retail prices
  • ☐ Product texts with legal framing and an 18+ notice on every product page
  • ☐ Age confirmation in your checkout
  • ☐ Destination countries checked per product, and others blocked in checkout
  • ☐ VAT setup discussed with your accountant, including OSS
  • ☐ Packaging and insert agreed: neutral parcel, your branding, or the producer’s
  • ☐ Claims procedure in writing: photos, period, batch code
  • ☐ Shipping information page in your shop that matches what the producer actually does

From the producer side

Write your delivery page after you have seen the producer’s shipping information, not before. Customers judge a dropship shop on whether the parcel arrives when the shop said it would, and the producer’s shipping days for living products are what decides that.

Mondo offers dropshipping to approved partners. You can read how it is set up on the dropshipping page and check shipping and delivery for how orders ship from the Netherlands.

Shop at Mondo Wholesale

✓Producing in the Netherlands since 2009✓In-house production in Purmerend✓Wholesale, dropshipping, white and private label

Mondo Wholesale is the B2B side of Mondo Europe B.V.: grow kits, grow bags, magic truffles, spores, liquid cultures and grow tools, produced in Purmerend and shipped to business partners across Europe.

Questions about dropshipping grow kits

Does my customer see the producer’s name on the parcel?

That depends on the packaging agreed with your supplier. Ask before you start whether parcels go out neutral, and what documents travel inside. If your brand matters, white label or private label may suit you better than plain dropshipping.

Can I dropship grow kits and truffles together?

Only if both products are legal in your customer’s country and your supplier ships both there. Fresh truffles are a perishable product with different rules than grow kits, so check each one separately.

What happens if a dropshipped kit arrives contaminated?

Your customer contacts you, and you claim from the producer under the agreed procedure. Ask your customer for photos with the batch code visible straight away, because that is usually what the claim needs.

Do I need a company to dropship?

Yes. B2B suppliers work with registered businesses and will usually ask for a company registration and VAT number. You also need a company to handle the consumer VAT on your sales.

Can I set my own retail price?

Yes. In dropshipping you set the retail price; the producer invoices you at your partner price. Calculate the margin after VAT, payment fees and returns, not before.

Sources and further reading

Facts checked in October 2026 against the sources above.