E-commerce retail platforms are an important part of how drop-shipping companies do business.
The online platforms for e-commerce don’t all work the same way. Instead, they all have their own ways of working and pros and cons.
Shopify is a complete platform for selling things online. It is one of the most popular platforms for several reasons.
For a monthly fee, the platform lets you set up an online store from which you can market and sell your products all over the world.
Shopify has put together an impressive set of tools to help you set up your store.
It supports more than 50 languages and integrates with a number of payment gateways.
How Shopify helps dropshipping businesses
Shopify is becoming more and more popular among online store owners all over the world.
Here are the main reasons why we think Shopify will help you build a profitable eCommerce business.
As a New Comer
For someone just starting out in the dropshipping business, the e-commerce platforms can be a lot to handle, but Shopify makes it as easy as possible. They have tools to help you set up your Shopify account and are great if you want to do dropshipping.
Shopify regularly posts tutorials and case studies to help new customers learn how to use the retail platform and answer any questions they might have. They also post success stories often to encourage people who are thinking about starting their own business but aren’t sure yet.
Templates and Themes
When you set up your Shopify store, you can choose from a huge number of professional themes and templates. The templates are customer-focused and ready to be used on mobile devices. All of the templates work very well and are easy to use.
When you first start dropshipping, it’s a big plus that you don’t have to use only paid templates and themes. The free templates work well, and you don’t have to pay extra money right away. You can choose to pay for paid themes and templates later on if you want more features and more ways to customize them.
SEO functions are built in
All types of e-commerce are very competitive and growing quickly. To make it easier to succeed, you need all the help and support you can get. Most business owners aren’t SEO experts, so this part of their business can take a lot of time. Shopify makes SEO easy by giving you all the tools you need to make your site very visible to search engines and get it indexed. Getting found on search engines is a must for any business today.
You can use features like adding and editing meta tags, adding product descriptions, and putting products in collections.
Cross Channel Sales
Your business will benefit a lot from being able to sell through more than one channel. You can connect your Shopify store to a Facebook page and make direct sales through the Shopify app, which will greatly increase the number of people who might buy from you.
Social networking is a very effective way to market, and you can sell on other platforms, like Twitter and Pinterest, as well. Do some research to find platforms that let you sell on multiple channels.
An Extensive App Store
Shopify has made a lot of apps to help their customers. These apps make your Shopify store more powerful. With these plugins and extensions, you can choose the ones that work best for your Shopify store and your needs.
With over 1,500 paid and free apps to choose from, you can do things like check stock levels and reports, help customers, and connect with social media much more easily. All of these tools and apps help you make your business more visible online and bring in more sales and customers.
Community
Even with the best help, problems come up in business, and sometimes you don’t know how to handle them. The Shopify community forum is a great place to ask people from all over the world who use Shopify questions, voice concerns, or get advice.
Help with Language
All languages can be used on the Shopify platform, which is a very important thing.
You can use any language you want for your store, checkout, and all emails with customers.
Dropshipping Apps on Shopify
When it comes to dropshipping, the Shopify App Store offers a wide variety of dropshipping applications for merchants to use.
First and foremost, these apps simplify the dropshipping process, which in turn makes your company easier to run.
To begin, however, you may be curious about what they are and how they function.
Let’s talk about the best dropshipping apps you can find in the Shopify app store.
Dsers is one of the most reputable and well-known AliExpress dropshipping partners, as a competent order management platform.
DSers is a very important dropshipping app on Shopify since it reaches millions of users and offers them with easy and efficient dropshipping processes.
Features
Supplier Optimizer
Bulk Order
Bundle Products
Stock Management
Multiple Stores Management
Auto Update Order Status
Automatic Pricing
Variants Mapping
Products Division
Buy One Get One Offers
Import List (for managing AliExpress products in one place)
Pros:
Easy to adapt
Tracking and syncing shipping
Responsive support team
Live online and videos training options
More than one Shopify store in an account
Multiple platform integrations
No harmful impact on the speed of the page
Cons:
Mapping of the products may be improved.
Despite its ease, the training options can be multiplied.
Pricing
There is a free forever version. Paid plans can be purchased on a monthly or yearly basis. The monthly Advanced plan, which is the most popular option, can be purchased for $19/month. In addition, the larger plans, known as Pro and Enterprise, come with a price tag of $49.90/month and $499/month, respectively, and have a bigger number of sophisticated features.
Both the Pro and Advance plans have a 14-day trial period.
CJ Dropshipping is a company that offers a professional dropshipping service. It offers order, supplier, and sourcing management. It is used by large businesses and has options for languages like English, French, and Chinese (both simplified and traditional).
Features
World-wide warehouses
Checking the quality of packages
Find products for free
Delivery for cash
Orders are filled automatically
Service POD
Pros:
Great customer service
Cost and shipping time are fair
Option for quick sourcing
Fast problem solving
Multiple support provider
Bulk dropshipping orders
Cons:
Shipping could be accelerated for some customers.
Wrong charging can worsen the user experience.
State of stock must be followed for the customers so they will not have a negative experience.
Pricing
CJ Dropshipping is a free app. The only price you need to pay comes after a charging process when you buy a product.
Spocket is easy to reach, and it’s even easier to work with them because they focus on doing the job themselves with their best features, so you can sell your products the right way. Spocket is one of the most trusted apps for Shopify. It does everything, from integrating the platforms to shifting you from other competetors.
Features
Niche products.
Supplier vetting.
Fulfilling orders with one-click.
Auto-updating the inventory.
Real-time order tracking.
Chrome extension.
Pros:
Robust UI.
Easy importing of products.
Reliable suppliers.
Responsive customer service.
Possible to cancel at any time.
Inventory management.
Probable quality products.
Help Center including articles.
Branded invoice for the advanced plans.
Cons:
Extra charge for dropshipping to other regions than the US and EU.
The free plan is minimal.
Checking the inventory is not possible, so problems occurred.
Pricing
There are four plans, including Free, Starter, Pro, and Empire. The Starter is for boosting sales and costs $24.99. Another plan is Pro costing $49.99 to maximize sales. And the Empire plan is $99.99 for managing sales at scale. You can try all of these with a 14-day free trial option, and further, you can cancel if you are not satisfied enough.
Zendrop is a global dropshipping app for Shopify that connects the right supplier with the right merchants and stores so that customers can buy from them. Zendrop is made by dropshippers for dropshippers, so they know what the ups and downs of dropshipping are.
Features
Product Sourcing.
Private Product Listing.
Bundles and Subscription Boxes.
Zendrop Academy.
Private Labeling.
United States Fulfillment.
Custom Branding.
Real-time Analytics.
Pros:
Very good user interface
Highly responsive customer service
Fast shipping times
Working with reliable companies
Interactive and user-friendly website
Detailed tutorials/ instructions
Applicable service
Cons:
People find it a little pricey.
They do not offer any refund in case of cancellation.
Some wrong charging was done.
Pricing
There are three plans, Free, Pro, and Plus. The Pro plan is $49 per month with unlimited orders per month and automated fulfillment. As for the Plus plan costing $79 per month, there are extra features, like Zendrop Academy, Bundle Products, and Chargeback Management.
Since 2018, Shopify’s dropshipping app Dropified has been working with full focus and constant improvements. Dropified has a respected place on the Shopify App Store because it knows both the market and its competitors.
Features
Automatic track and sync shipping
Pre-set shipping
Bundle products
Ordering automation and fulfillment
Print-on-demand supplements
Pros:
Various integrations with Zapier,and e-commerce websites.
Knowledgeable support team.
On-time alerting for automation.
Connecting multiple vendors smoothly.
Helping video sources.
Migration tools to provide.
Customization option on products.
Possible to add Chrome extension.
No bad impact on the speed of the page
Cons:
Some connectivity problems may occur.
Importing and mapping goods can be problematic.
Some may find it pricey.
Pricing
There is a free plan with no fees and 4.000 products. Besides, the Import plan costs $17 per month, giving the chance to use up to 20.000 products with a free trial. The last and the most advantageous plan is Retro, costing $47 per month and is billed monthly for unlimited products with a free trial.
Integrating with eBay and Shopify, which are now the two most well-known platforms for doing online business. DSM is able to automate the fulfillment in a relatively short period of time, which ranges from seven to fifteen days.
Features
Bulk import products
Sourcing high-quality products
Advanced product editing
Listings SEO optimization
Auto-restock
Affiliate program
Pros:
Easy to set up
Supportive customer service
Possible price optimization
Useful auto-filling feature
Cost-effective pricing
Multi variation listing lister
Rapid lister functions
Cons:
Updating software is not robust.
Sometimes, the page loads slowly.
Incorrect charging occurred.
Pricing
You can start free or pick a plan and use it with a free trial. Also, you can save up to 20% by preferring the yearly Pricing. Therefore, the Basic plan costs $19.97 yearly for up to 600 managed active listings, the Business plan is $79.97 for up to 5,000 managed active listings, and the Enterprise plan costs $399.97 for up to 25,000 managed active listings.
Trendsi is a fashion app that tries to bring together technology and fashion. It is different from the other apps on the list. It promises an easy way to provide a dropshipping process.
Features
Finding things
Quick delivery and return
Custom packaging
Stocks are in sync
No inventory costs up front
Pros:
App that is easy to use.
Helpful support team.
Well-designed website.
Price things in a fair way.
Huge number of items.
Allowing mobility.
Products of high quality were chosen.
Photography you can trust.
Cons:
There were some cases of shipping being late.
People think it’s slow to import time.
Pricing
Trendsi is a free app, and you only have to pay when you want to buy a sample of a product from a seller.
Drawbacks of Shopify
Shopify has a lot of pros, but like any other online retail platform, it also has some cons that dropshipping businesses should be aware of before using it.
Let us get into more detail.
CMS Limitations
As a dropshipping business, your main focus is on online sales, and you want to use a platform that gives you a lot of freedom while still being easy to use. Shopify’s CMS is not as good as, say, WordPress, which is a major management system.
Shopify’s content management system is geared toward running an e-commerce store, so if you want to use it for your dropshipping business, you will need a custom theme that you can change and the Shopify blogging platform.
Content limitations
There are only two types of content you can choose from: a page or a blog post. This is a problem if you want to link posts to some of your products, and it’s not easy to make more text fields for any of the products you sell.
Product Lookups
The basic Shopify plans have very limited search options and don’t let you use advanced search filters. You will need to upgrade your Shopify plan if you want to use the more advanced search tools.
Payments
Shopify doesn’t want people to use payment gateways other than their own. If you use one of the other payment gateways, Shopify will charge you a 2% transaction fee for each transaction that goes through it.
Expenses
No online shopping site gives its services away for free. When you join Shopify, you should look at the different fees they charge so you can choose a payment plan that you can afford and that works best for your business.
Shopify lets you try out the platform for free for 14 days so you can learn how it works and figure out what your business needs are.
If you want to keep using the online retail portal after your 14-day trial, you must choose a subscription plan. They do offer discounts for annual and two-year subscription plans, which is a plus.
Each of the payment plans has its own benefits, with more features coming with the more expensive plans.
There are five different choices available right now:
● Shopify Lite.
● Basic Shopify.
● Shopify.
● Advanced Shopify.
● Shopify Plus (this plan has negotiable fees).
Scalability
Most dropshipping businesses start small with the goal of growing as their resources and money grow. When you’re ready to grow, it’s not easy or simple to export everything you’ve done on Shopify because all the content you’ve uploaded and any customized features are hosted by Shopify.
You can’t take your search engine ranking with you to your new site. Your new site will have to be indexed and start building up its search ranking from scratch.
It’s not impossible to export data to your new site, but it will be a lot of work and take a long time to export your customer and sales data.
The way to get around Shopify’s problem with scaling is to start your dropshipping business with your own website instead of completely reliant on a retail platform. It takes more work at first, but it’s worth it in the long run. Use the retail platform and build your website slowly on top of it, so that when you need to grow, you already have a website with a CMS that has all the features of a major content management system.
Underage Entrepreneurs
To open a Shopify account, you must be at least 18 years old. This isn’t a big problem, but very young entrepreneurs should know about it. If you’re under 18, your parents or guardian will have to set up your Shopify account for you. Once that’s done, you’ll be ready to go.
