Oberlo vs AliDropship - Which dropshipping platform is better in 2021?

Dropshipping is a lucrative eCommerce business model. Not only does it save money, but it also takes care of the headaches of delivering orders for the company. Dropshipping stores, on the other hand, provide a slew of challenges for business owners. However, thanks to AliDropship and Oberlo, dropshipping is no longer a problem.

Dropshipping has made it possible to start an eCommerce business on a shoestring budget of just a few hundred dollars and make a profit. Both AliDropship and Oberlo are great tools for e-merchants and dropshippers because they have characteristics that both cater to.

Even for product procurement, they utilize an established online marketplace such as AliExpress. They also work with eCommerce sites, so you can make money by selling your stuff. To help you decide which platform is superior, we’ll be comparing Oberlo and AliDropship in this post.

What is Oberlo?

Oberlo, Shopify’s self-hosted eCommerce app, was developed in-house. While selling directly to your consumer, the Oberlo app allows you to import dropshipping products from AliExpress into a Shopify store with relative ease.

Using Oberlo, it’s simple to find great things to offer on your website. Oberlo gives you quick and easy access to a wide range of product areas. Oberlo is only compatible with Shopify and does not operate on any other systems. In just a few clicks, you can find products from a wide range of AliExpress suppliers and have them shipped directly to your consumer.

To use the Oberlo app and add items to your Shopify store, you must first sign up for a Shopify account. The Oberlo app can only be installed after your Shopify store is fully set up.

What is AliDropship?

When it comes to automating your shopping experience on AliExpress, AliDropship is the go-to firm. This makes it possible for you to run a successful dropshipping business.

WordPress-based plugin AliDropship makes it simple to get your online store up and running quickly. As a result of the plugin, starting and running a successful dropshipping business is made simple. It aids in the automation of your AliExpress drop shipping operation. By doing so, you’ll have more time to focus on other aspects of your business.

The AliDropship Plugin is also available as an AliDropship Woo version for WooCommerce. AliDropship Woo is a WooCommerce dropshipping plugin that only works with websites that already have the WooCommerce plugin installed. It is an updated version of the original AliDropship plugin.

Some Oberlo and Alidropship e-Commerce information

In the last five years, e-commerce has risen in popularity and now controls 45.4% of the total web. Due to clients purchasing goods and services over the internet, this quick growth was sparked. To find out which e-commerce sites sell the most, researchers tallied up all of the sales online.

AliDropship (WordPress+WooCommerce)

WordPress started as a simple blogging platform, but as it grew in functionality, it became more complex. As time passes, more and more individuals are turning to it for everything from personal blogs to e-commerce sites. A PHP-based open-source website builder, to put it another way.

As an e-commerce plugin, WooCommerce allows you to sell anything on the internet for free. It’s a WordPress plugin that provides you complete control over your website’s appearance. Rather, WooCommerce is an add-on for the WordPress platform.

Oberlo (Shopify eCommerce Platform)

Set up an online store and sell your products using Shopify, a complete e-commerce solution. You might think of it as a one-stop shop for everything you need to run an online business. From the domain to the web server. Everything is taken care of by Shopify. It’s understandable why it doesn’t offer a free e-commerce platform like the rest.

Self-hosting is only available with Shopify, an e-commerce platform. It does not, however, allow you complete control over your website. For security reasons, Shopify doesn’t allow any third-party apps or integrations.

The AliDropship Plugin for WordPress and WooCommerce is cross-platform compatible. Oberlo, on the other hand, is only compatible with Shopify.

Oberlo vs Alidropship: Some similar functionalities and features

Product suppliers

AliDropship and Oberlo both use AliExpress as their primary product suppliers, therefore there isn’t much difference between the two.

AliDropship’s product suppliers are also sellers on AliExpress. With the “My Supplier” add-on available on the platform, you can keep track of all the product suppliers with whom you do business. You may use criteria like the product category, seller ratings, product counts, and gross profit to sort supplier lists with this add-on.

You can also use the Import Supplier option to interact with certain vendors. It is possible to import suppliers from AliExpress to your store by utilizing their store ID, for example.

Oberlo’s key suppliers are those on AliExpress, with whom you’ll be doing business. There are thousands of dropshipping suppliers on the site, and some of them are small businesses and one-person shops.

You can use the Oberlo Chrome Extension to import a specific dropshipping provider into your Oberlo store. When you browse AliExpress with the extension installed, you’ll see the Oberlo icon in your toolbar.

Product import and sourcing

You may easily import products directly from Aliexpress using AliDropship or Oberlo. Adding them to your online store is as simple as clicking a button. You may also update the descriptions, names, and photographs if necessary, thanks to their user-friendly browser plugin.

AliExpress products may be imported into AliDropship from the Import area with ease using AliDropship for AliExpress. You can browse by product category, subcategory, or keyword to find specific items.

To pick the proper products, there are additional filtering choices such as delivery mode, shipment from/to destinations, free shipping, and the like. Each item has an import button next to it and clicking it imports it into your store.

Importing products from Oberlo’s Search Products page is an option for users of Oberlo. Products can be sorted by marketplace and category on this page. The “Add to Import List” button may be found beneath each item’s details page. As soon as you click it, the item will be added to your imports list. You can see all the items you’ve added to your import list by going to the Import List page.

Also, you can check your listed products and, if they fit your needs, choose ‘Import to Store’ from the drop-down menu that appears.

Fulfillment of Purchase Orders

Both Oberlo and AliDropship use the same order fulfillment technique for their online stores’ orders.

Order fulfillment can be done manually or automatically with AliDropship. The order fulfillment page under settings allows you to customize how orders are delivered. Paying for orders puts consumers on the Orders dashboard. Simply click on the button labeled “Place Order Automatically” to get started. After that, you’ll be taken to an AliExpress checkout page to complete your purchase. After that, you’ll be able to pay.

Oberlo’s Orders page is where customers can see and complete their orders. As a result, you have the option of fulfilling orders one at a time or orders in large quantities. When placing a single order, click on Order Product next to the item you want to order, and when placing a bulk order, click Place Order. Next, Oberlo will take you to your AliExpress shopping cart for payment. To enable your clients to follow their orders after payment has been completed, the supplier will send AliExpress tracking numbers that you must connect with Oberlo.

Keeping Track of Inventory

Using one of the tools will allow you to make use of yet another useful feature. They’ll manage your complete inventory to keep your store in check. Both systems can keep track of inventory levels and send you a notification when it’s time to stop selling things.

You won’t have to stress about placing an order if your supplier doesn’t have the item in stock. The benefit of this is that it keeps your online business current.

Sales tracking

Both AliDropship and Oberlo give you full access to their dashboards, allowing you to keep tabs on the status of your store in real-time. In addition, it demonstrates in detail the advantages.

You may see the order no., shipment date, and product delivery date from the dashboard, which is available to all customers. You’ll also get a single dashboard with stats like the number of visitors and other useful information.

Shipping

The delivery options are the same for AliDropShip and Oberlo because they both work with AliExpress.

A dropship plugin and a dropship plugin for WooCommerce differ in their shipping choices. The AliDropship plugin offers customers a choice of four different shipping alternatives. Free shipping, Super Savings shipping, Standard shipping, and Expedited shipping are all included in this offer. Standard shipping is also included.

Oberlo’s shipping options are managed in the Supplies section of the settings. Over at Oberlo, you’ll see the same shipping options that you’d find on AliExpress. These options include ePacket; Free; Super Savings; Standard; and Expedited Shipping.

ePacket Shipping Filter

One of the reasons newcomers have difficulties with drop shipping is that their ePacket Shipping Filter Products take a long time to arrive. That feeling you get when a buyer wants to buy a $10 product from you. All of this is because their items are taking an eternity to produce.

If you’re using Oberlo or AliDropship, you can simply find and import products that use ePacket. You’ll have peace of mind knowing your things will arrive on schedule for your consumer this way.

Differences between Oberlo and AliDropship

Both tools are great, but you would have figured that by now, wouldn’t you. Even yet, there are still some differences between their functionalities and characteristics. Oberlo and AliDropship have several key differences that are detailed below.

Personalization

Oberlo only works with Shopify’s free default themes. To make your online store stand out, you can invest up to $140 in one of their gorgeous and well-designed themes.

When you utilize the AliDropship plugin, you’ll have access to pre-made themes for your online store. WooCommerce, on the other hand, allows you access to thousands of free templates that you may personalize to your liking.

Subscription and pricing

A 30-day free trial of Oberlo’s platform is available for testing purposes only; after that, you’ll need to upgrade to one of the paid plans to continue using it.

• Starter Plan - $29.90 a month. You can receive up to 500 orders per month and import up to 10,000 products per month with this.
• Plan Pro – $79.90 per month. Up to 30,000 products may be imported with this plan, and you may receive an unlimited number of orders from your becauseTostore.

Keep in mind that your store will continue to run if you choose one of the Shopify plans. The cheapest Shopify subscription costs $29 per month. This platform’s average annual subscription charge is $696. (image)

However, AliDropship does not provide a free trial period or a monthly subscription. There is a one-time cost of $89 for this service. And if you want, you can even select from their hosting plans and finally buy a Domain name from NameCheap for less than $10.

With AliDropship, you only pay once and get lifetime access to all features, updates, and support. There are no further fees or levies in the future.

Hosting a website

Oberlo falls short of AliDropship here due to the lack of web hosting options. Shopify stores hosted on other servers will not be able to make use of the plug-in. Since Oberlo was designed for Shopify, you can easily host your dropshipping store on Shopify’s web hosting services before connecting with Oberlo.

If you want to order a bespoke store from AliDropship, you’ll require web hosting. If your WooCommerce store is already hosted, you won’t need this plugin. Depending on your subscription, you can host up to 30 dropshipping stores simultaneously on AliExpress. cPanel, a free SSL certificate, and an AliDropship subdomain are all included in the web hosting package. You have complete control over this domain’s name and can switch to a different one at any moment.

Integrations with External Parties

AliDropship outperforms Oberlo in terms of third-party integration support thanks to its native nature. Only Shopify and Oberlo are integrated into the platform and no other platforms. The platform is integrated with Shopify, which has an App Store with over 3,000 third-party apps. Oberlo’s Chrome Extension is also available.

AliDropship is compatible with both the WordPress content management system and the WordPress eCommerce plugin, WooCommerce. In addition, there’s a Chrome add-on for it. For even more traffic analytics, AliDropship also integrates with Google Analytics. You can combine AliDropship with PayPal, Mondido, and other services using WooCommerce.

Analytics

AliDropship provides data on both sales and store visitors, whereas Oberlo exclusively provides sales information.

Oberlo’s dashboard gives you access to sales data and analytics. In the Overview area, there’s a graph showing product sales and costs, as well as information on sales, orders, costs, and profits over a specific time. It’s also possible to set up reporting so that you’ll receive e-mails with details about your Oberlo sales and total sales. Daily, weekly, or monthly reports are provided and sent.

To obtain sales statistics from AliDropship Reports, start by choosing a date range for when you want the report summary to be generated. The summary of the report will give you information on the number of unique visitors, the cost and profit of suppliers, the number of orders, the average value of each order, and the conversion rate. A sales chart and a Traffic Report section provide visual representations of these findings, as well as more in-depth information about your store’s visitors.

AliExpress Cash-back Program

When you use AliDropship’s cash-back program in conjunction with AliExpress, you have the option to earn money on the side. The AliExpress affiliate plugin is normally required to earn commissions as an AliExpress affiliate on your website.

The good news is that AliDropship was able to include similar features in their plugin as well. As a result, any order you place on AliExpress earns you an additional 12% commission.

Oberlo does not offer the AliExpress Cash-back program.

Marketing

The AliDropship plugin was designed specifically for people who are new to dropshipping. To make your business more profitable, they went one step further and developed the following marketing elements.

You can run specials and promotions by supplying coupon codes for your goods while using discount coupons. As a result, more merchandise is sold.

• Abandoned Cart — The features allow you to recover the majority of your absent cart by sending emails to consumers who did not complete their purchase.
• E-mail lists - Use this plugin to build email lists of customers who have visited your online store, but haven’t completed a transaction.

Instead of being a part of a larger suite, Oberlo functions more independently. Any other tools you want to add to your store may be found in the Shopify app store. A service like Beeketing, which provides several free apps, is fully compatible with Shopify’s eCommerce platform.

Which e-Commerce system, Oberlo or AliDropship, is better for you?

Dropshipping’s most well-known solutions are AliDropship and Oberlo. You must take into account a variety of factors, some of which are more important to you than others when deciding between them. If you’re just starting, I’d suggest using Shopify because it’s so user-friendly. You’ll be able to get your store up and running in no time.

On the other hand, Alidropship is an excellent choice if you’ve worked in e-commerce before and want complete control over your store’s content and design. Certainly, the price is a deterrent, but the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. Additionally, it provides you with the ability to perform SEO, which is an absolute necessity.

Final Words

As you can see, both Oberlo and Alidropship are viable and deserving of consideration. Both have great characteristics, so it’s really up to you which one you choose. Price, design, usefulness, and learning curve are all important differentiators.

When all is said and done, the best system is the one that is the most cost-effective. There isn’t much time required to learn WordPress, and getting started with a business may be done in a few days.