For those who are learning and participating in the eCommerce market, the dropshipping model in particular will probably hear of Shopify platform and Oberlo app. However, many people still often misunderstand how these two platforms work. Who should use these platforms? What features do these platforms have? How much do these cost? Should you integrate Oberlo into the Shopify store? This article is the answer for you, below will be the most detailed comparison of Oberlo vs Shopify.
Besides, check out other platform reviews in our Shopify comparison series!
Table of Contents
Overview: What are Shopify and Oberlo?
Shopify
Shopify is a complete eCommerce platform that helps people set up their own online store and sell products across multiple channels. Starting a Shopify store is as easy as signing up for an account and modifying existing templates.
Basically, Shopify acts as a website builder. This provides a graphical user interface – a way of building a website. No additional coding knowledge is required.
By 2020, more than 1,000,000 customers are using the platform, making Shopify the top 1 eCommerce platform in the world.
Oberlo
Oberlo is the Drop Shipping Software solution with functionality and cost suitable for small and medium businesses to large enterprises. Oberlo software is highly regarded by both users and experts in the E-Commerce Software field.
Oberlo supports dropshipping by connecting directly to the Aliexpress – one of the best wholesalers in the world. Accordingly, Oberlo acts as a data bridge between Aliexpress and Shopify by synchronizing product data, dropshipping order processing,… So you can easily find potential products or add products from Aliexpress through Oberlo, customize products and sell them right on Shopify.
Overall comparison
| Shopify | Shopify + Oberlo | |
|---|---|---|
| Default feature | Many outstanding features - Product customization - Import/Export products and customer information easily - “Buy button” - Canceled Cart Recovery - Helpful add-ons - Multichannel sales, managed in one place - Analytic |
|
| Oberlo's standout features support Shopify stores | - | Includes dropshipping useful features - Synchronizing data makes it easy to add products to your store: Search, select, add to leads, sell on Shopify. - Create orders on AliExpress directly using the Oberlo app. - Automated product inventory - Automated order fulfillment - Track your order from Aliexpress |
| Dropshipping Support | There are not as many dropshipping features that offer support as Oberlo | Emphasis on dropshipping support |
| Customer service | Video tutorials, 24/7 chat, Twitter, email, phone, and discussion forum | Live chat, blog, Oberlo help center, and email |
| Cost | Shopify has a higher cost than other eCommerce platforms, but comes with outstanding features and quality of the website. Prices for Shopify's plans range from $29 to $299 a month. | Different price packages depending on usage from free to $79.90 per month. If you integrate Oberlo, it costs you the Shopify + Oberlo package price. |
| Who should use it? | All eCommerce store from small to large enterprises | Dropshipping stores |
How do Oberlo vs Shopify work?
You can use Shopify even if you don’t know the technique
With Shopify, you can build websites and customize them easily without any programming skills. You can easily post and manage products, set up website interfaces, add content, manage inventory, payment systems, automatically calculate shipping fees by area.
Unlike platforms like Magento or OpenCart, which require you to have knowledge of website, hosting or HTML to use. Shopify is designed for everyone, you don’t need any programming skills to get started with Shopify.
Oberlo is an app dedicated to supporting the sales of the Shopify store.
Shopify acquired Oberlo to best assist sellers in connecting to the source and optimizing dropshipping from Aliexpress. This is an application that allows merchants to add stocking goods to their store within minutes.
Some eCommerce entrepreneurs will spend hours scouring the web for the best product. But Oberlo makes it simple by suggesting popular items and adding them to your store. Oberlo Market connects you with vendors worldwide. You can find a lot of products and add them to your dropshipping store in just a few clicks.
In addition, Oberlo is only compatible with the Shopify platform. Oberlo does not support any other ecommerce platforms.
Shopify’s default eCommerce features
Advanced customization features on prices, product descriptions,…
Edit product image, title, description, price and so on. Once you’ve imported your product, you can make changes to make sure it’s relevant to the rest of your store while engaging your target audience.
You can perform the following operations such as Add – Add product quantity, Set – Change quantity of products on the system.
Buy Button
With this feature, you can embed any product and add a payment to your website. It’s a great tool for creating custom shopping experiences for your visitors.
Using the “Buy Button”, you can easily monetize your website or blog with just one click.
App and add-ons
You can expand your storefront with over 1,200 Shopify apps and add-ons (free or paid). All of them are available from the Shopify app store to help you better manage various aspects of your online store like inventory, customers, shipping, marketing, and more.
Canceled cart recovery feature
Shopify’s Canceled Cart Recovery is designed to help you keep track of visitors who didn’t complete the checkout process.
This feature was previously only available on the higher Shopify plans but recently decided to offer it on all packages – which is absolutely a great boon for users.
Multi-channel sales, managed in one place
Shopify is the best solution for multichannel sales, you can sell in many different channels but centrally managed in one place. Sales channels you can connect with Shopify such as Facebook Shop, Messenger, Instagram, Google, POS, Amazon, eBay,…
Analytics
Depending on your plan, there are several types of analytics reports that Shopify and Oberlo can create. These reports provide important insights into what products are selling (and which products are not), where visitors are coming from and how they found your online store, and integrate information to create an effective marketing plan. Google Analytics is also easily integrated into your store.
Oberlo’s standout features support Shopify dropshipping stores
With Oberlo, you can easily find potential products or add products from Aliexpress, customize products and sell them right on Shopify. Oberlo will have some of the following features:
Synchronizing data makes it easy to add products to your store: Search, select, add to leads, sell on Shopify.
Oberlo provides information about the products you are looking for such as: rating and number of reviews, arrival metrics, number of orders, number of views, and Oberlo verified suppliers.
Besides that, Oberlo verifies merchant connections with vendors who have provided the best quality service for a long time.
Here are some of the key properties describing the Oberlo verified provider:
- 95% of on-time delivery
- Has successfully processed over 1000 orders through Oberlo
- Offers automatic one-click order shipping
- Support is faster due to the direct relationship with the Oberlo team
- Warehouse, working conditions, business contacts and addresses are checked by Oberlo
- Product and shipping capacity verified by Oberlo
- Dedicated staff ensure on-time delivery
- 2% lower dispute rate
- 100% dedicated to dropshipping – no promotional content in their packaging
You will never have to stress about finding quality suppliers – they have been carefully selected for you. This feature is exclusively for Oberlo app users.
Moreover, the Oberlo installation allows you to import products instantly from AliExpress’s huge database. This feature is really convenient for anyone who wants to enhance the functionality of their online store and save time, as Oberlo allows customers to add products from AliExpress with a single click.
With the ePacket filter, users also have the option of importing products with fast delivery times according to their needs.
Create orders on AliExpress directly using the Oberlo app.
One of the advantages of creating Aliexpress orders on Oberlo is the easy-to-use interface. In essence, the interface and product details management will be done on the Shopify dashboard. You need to visit your Shopify website and complete that customization. So it can be considered that Oberlo’s interface will be similar to Shopify.
Similar to the Shopify configuration, the Oberlo dashboard has a clean menu on the left-hand side for completing a wide variety of tasks. For example, you can search for products, set your featured products, import lists or view your products. All the items in your store are organized in a reasonable fashion, with information about your sales and earnings for each one.
NOTE: If you want to make an order on AliExpress via Oberlo, you can do it using the Oberlo Chrome Extension. Then, check your order in Oberlo and click Order products next to each pending order. From there, Oberlo did the rest. It will buy products from AliExpress for you and insert details about your customers.
Automated product inventory
Inventory management can be a problem for online store owners. Oberlo has started to change this with his cutting-edge dropshipping business model.
In addition to the ability to easily add products to your store, Oberlo provides real-time price and inventory updates.
Oberlo also automatically delivers your inventory and inventory metrics. Inventory is continuously managed so you never sell an item that is out of stock. The same goes for pricing. So if the price drops on the supplier side, you will be notified in case you want to adjust the price on your own website.
Track your order from AliExpress right on Oberlo and automated order fulfillment
This feature lets you know where your orders are at all times, which allows you to provide the best customer experience possible.
In addition, Oberlo offers an automated feature that makes it super easy to fulfill your order. Once an order arrives through your online store, all you have to do is locate the product in your inventory and hit the Order Product button, then everything will be automatically handled by Oberlo. You can add several products to your cart, even if the items are from different suppliers.
Should Oberlo be combined with Shopify?
If you are doing or learning about dropshipping, integrating Oberlo into Shopify is essential. It saves you maximum time searching for products and ensures reputable suppliers for your store.
In fact, Oberlo is the best research method for Shopify dropship.
Note: You only need to connect Oberlo with Shopify if you signed up for an account on the Oberlo website. If you created a Shopify account and added the Oberlo plugin from your Shopify backend, then the two accounts are already integrated, and no further action is required.
Oberlo vs Shopify: How much does it cost to use?
Shopify
Since Shopify is designed as a quick eCommerce website building tool, the associated costs are also higher than the average website builder or web hosting-based platforms.
| Basic Shopify | Shopify | Advanced Shopify | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $29 | $79 | $299 |
| Employee account | 2 | 5 | 15 |
| Credit card fee | 2.9% + $0.30 | 2.6% + $0.30 | 2.4% + $0.30 |
| Transaction fee | 2% | 1% | 0.5% |
| Shopify Payment | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Gift card | - | Yes | Yes |
| Canceled cart recovery | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free SSL Certificate | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fraud Analysis | - | Yes | Yes |
| Personal report | - | Yes | Yes |
| Professional report | - | Yes | Yes |
| Previous report generator | - | - | Yes |
| Real-time shipping fee | - | - | Yes |
| 24/7 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Suitable for | beginners | the store with good sales | the store with significant sales |
Oberlo
Oberlo’s pricing is quite reasonable, and the company offers 3 main plans, which include: Stater Plan, Basic Plan and Pro Plan
| Starter Plan | Basic Plan | Pro Plan | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost (per month) | Free | $29.90 | $79.90 |
| The number of products | 500 | 10.000 | 30.000 |
| The number of orders | Unlimited monthly orders | ||
| Inventory update | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Product synced daily | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fulfill orders in one click | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Auto import of Aliexpress | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automatically set pricing and markups | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Chrome extension | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sale reports | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dispute management | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bulk orders | - | Yes | Yes |
| Real-time order tracking | - | Yes | Yes |
| Variant Mapping | - | Yes | Yes |
| Affiliate program | - | Yes | Yes |
| Order fulfillment monitoring | - | Yes | Yes |
| Multiple staff account | - | - | Yes |
| Captcha solver | - | - | Yes |
In short, Shopify is an eCommerce platform that includes support and solutions for your website and Oberlo is an integrated Shopify app for dropshipping. If you want to run a general eCommerce store, Shopify will be the perfect choice while Oberlo is for dropshipping store owners.
As of June 15, 2022, Oberlo has completely shut down. You’ll want to consider other Oberlo alternatives at this stage if you’re looking for a dropshipping tool that can one click import AliExpress products directly to your Shopify store.
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