For any eager entrepreneur wanting to start an eCommerce business, dropshipping is our magic bullet. With a unique business model, we can become business owners without having to invest huge piles of money.
To clarify, dropshipping is a type of retail fulfillment method for online stores where the seller does not actually keep the inventory they sell in stock. Rather, when we make a sale, we then purchase the product from a third-party supplier. Afterward, the supplier directly ships the product to our customer. The best part is that we never actually touch any inventory while making a profit.
With this in mind, it’s no surprise that dropshipping is becoming more and more popular and prominent. Because of this, the forecast for the estimated global dropshipping market size will continuously grow in the following years.
As a matter of fact, there are many benefits to dropshipping. Apart from the lucrative business model, we should also keep in mind the following perks:
With that being said, and considering the growing popularity, the dropshipping market has become quite competitive. However, that shouldn’t discourage us because the key to success is research, reliable suppliers, and optimizing our selling channel.
Now, in this article, we will take a better and deeper look at dropshipping across different platforms. Additionally, we will learn about the dropshipping reviews for Shopify, eBay, Wix, and Facebook Marketplace.
To begin with, let’s look into what a sales channel actually is. Sales channels are places where we can market and sell products. However, there is a big difference between a marketplace and a customizable eCommerce website.
Unlike an eCommerce website, a marketplace is a platform that lists products from multiple sellers. In fact, it involves three parties: the marketplace administrator, the vendor, and the buyer. On the other hand, an eCommerce website is a channel that sells products from a single vendor. As a matter of fact, it only involves the seller and buyer.
Utilizing an eCommerce website allows for more customization and better brand development. Furthermore, it allows for the buyer to focus only on our listings and products without their attention being pulled by another seller with the same product.
Alternatively, if we use a marketplace to dropship our product we can leverage the trust and recognition that the marketplace already has. On top of that, we can utilize the large audience readily available on the platform.
All in all, both types of selling channels are great options for dropshipping. With that in mind, here are the top selling channels for dropshipping that we’ll be reviewing:
First, let’s take a look at Shopify. Shopify helps business entrepreneurs create and manage their online stores with zero coding. In short, this means that Shopify is a hosted eCommerce platform software.
Furthermore, the platform has numerous tools that help online business owners grow. Additionally, their diverse customization options and themes allow us to manage our store to stand out from the competition. As such, Shopify has become one of the go-to platforms for dropshippers.
However, in order to truly go into detail with our dropshipping reviews, we need to look at both the positives and the negatives. With that being said, let’s take a look at Shopify’s pros and cons.
Since Shopify is a hosted platform, we can get the skeleton of our dropshipping store with all the bells and whistles already taken care of. With the host, domain, and backend covered, we are able to start designing our store. On top of that, with their numerous themes and apps, we are able to customize our store.
Uniquely, Shopify also has ready-made templates that are designed and set up for high conversion rates. As such, this helps us start off with a strong store layout, optimized to convert viewers into buyers. Plus, there are numerous Shopify apps like ‘Shop channel’ that enable us to create a free mobile experience for our store. Or, the ‘AutoDS’ app that allows us to automate everything from product imports to order fulfillment and more.
What’s more, Shopify gives shipping discounts that go up to 64% allowing us to save money in our dropshipping endeavors. Plus, they have great customer service available 24/7. We can reach their support team through email, live chat, or even phone.
Lastly, we can also buy Shopify dropshipping stores for sale. By doing this, we can skip over the processes like system establishment, traffic, restricted cash flow, inventory sourcing, and customer generation. In fact, we can just go straight to the profitable aspects of operating a business.
On the other hand, we should also consider that there are transaction fees and we need Shopify Pay to lose them. To explain, the transaction fees cover the maintenance and cost of integrating Shopify with third-party payment providers. Notably, there are also credit card fees that may be a little steep starting at 2.9% + 30¢ for each transaction.
Also, on Shopify, there’s no organic traffic. Because of this, we need to utilize paid online advertising to get traction around our Shopify store. In addition, Shopify does not make it easy or convenient for us to migrate our store to another platform. To clarify, if we want to close our Shopify store, we can only take a CSV report that just has our product information.
Let’s continue with eBay. eBay is well known for being one of the most well-supplied and diverse online shopping sites. In addition, eBay does include dropshipping in its model and is a great place to start a dropshipping business.
The eBay dropshipping process is quite straightforward. As such, it does not require any specific knowledge or experience.
Importantly, we need to take into consideration eBay’s unique qualities as well. Now, as we run through our dropshipping reviews for eBay, considering its pros and cons is key. With that in mind, let’s dive into the dropshipping review:
First and foremost, it’s super easy to start dropshipping on eBay. We just need to make an account, find our winning products and suppliers and start listing them in our store. What’s more, eBay has millions of products that we can source. As such, we can find profitable products and grow our store listings which will increase our appeal to a large number of customers.
Additionally, we don’t need to spend piles of money in order to dropship on eBay. First, eBay doesn’t have a subscription fee in order to use it. Second, the listing fees on eBay are super low, including the fact that we get around 50 free per month.
Equally important, a great aspect of eBay that we can leverage is the vast and loyal customer base worldwide. Uniquely, we will be able to have access to a large number of customers which will help us increase sales.
Furthermore, eBay supports and pushes its sellers to be very customer-oriented while also providing buyer and seller protection. What this means is that in case of a dispute, eBay can intervene to help resolve it. As such, if either the buyer or seller is making false claims, eBay will step in and protect the right party.
Also, it’s super easy to spy on our competitors on eBay. To elaborate, we can see how many sellers are selling an item and how many sales they’re making by simply searching for a product or niche.
However, because eBay is an open marketplace, there are thousands of sellers with different and unique business policies. So, we need to be sure to read through each one’s policies to avoid issues in the future with our own customers. Plus, the platform has selling limits which hinder the number of sales and, by extension, profits we make. But, there are tips and ways to increase our eBay selling limits.
Moreover, eBay has fierce competition since it’s such an easy way to start our own dropshipping business. On top of that, the lack of customization on eBay makes it harder to stand out. However, with active users readily available on the platform we don’t have to worry about marketing expenses from the get-go, allowing us to continue scaling our business.
But, with the right guidance and killer products, we can surely leverage this platform and succeed. We should note that we need to look out for copyright infringement and can do so by utilizing AutoDS’ VeRO protection system.
Next up we have Wix. Wix is well known for being a website builder, and with that, we have the opportunity to create and build an eCommerce store. Furthermore, Wix also supports dropshipping and is a good platform to utilize.
Wix is a great platform to use for dropshipping because it’s super easy to use. Hence, if we are looking for a quick and easy way to start dropshipping, Wix may be our solution.
Not only that but with a starting price of approximately $20/month it’s also an affordable platform to use. For this reasonable subscription, we can easily create a dropshipping store.
Now, let’s dive into the dropshipping review for Wix:
As the Wix eCommerce platform is an extension of its website builder, it’s really easy to create our dropshipping store. Plus, connecting to a dropshipping app is effortless when working with Wix. With that in mind, we should note that Wix has some solid dropshipping apps in the Wix app store, like for example AutoDS.
In addition to this, Wix is super affordable. One might say that it’s even cheap for what it offers. They often offer discounts that will help us save on expenses. With that being said, they commonly offer a 50% discount on their already low pricing.
Also, this platform allows for customization enabling us to build our store in a way that attracts customers. To do so, Wix provides designer-made templates that we can edit to brand our business. Now, once we customize our store, we can start listing as many products as we want since there are no seller limits.
Last but not least, Wix makes it easy to reach the global market. With the Wix Multilingual tool, we can translate our website to reach audiences globally. Plus, when working with Wix, the platform allows us to sell to customers all over the world without limiting us to only a few regions.
On the downside, the platform is not very flexible. As Wix works on a drag-and-drop basis, there are customization limits. However, if we’re new to dropshipping it’s the perfect platform for us due to the ease of use.
Moreover, as Wix is not an open marketplace, we need to consider that there is no organic traffic. This means that we need to invest in marketing in order to increase traffic to our website.
On another note, to gain access to complete optimization features, we need to pay for a monthly subscription. With that, we can fully brand our store without any of Wix’s logos appearing on our storefront.
Lastly we’ll take a look at Facebook Marketplace. Facebook Marketplace is a Facebook selling channel where people can discover, buy and sell items. Despite it being around for a while, dropshippers only recently started utilizing this very profitable platform for their eCommerce endeavors.
Particularly, what makes it super profitable is the fact that it’s untapped, so there is not a lot of competition. Apart from this, since organic traffic and sales are booming, it’s the perfect platform to use for dropshipping.
Nevertheless, in order to truly do a dropshipping review, we need to dive into the pros and cons of Facebook Marketplace:
One of the benefits of using Facebook Marketplace is the fact that we can dropship without using a website. If we’re eligible for the required features, we can use a number of Facebook’s business tools like order management tools and onsite checkout for payment processing. Importantly, to be eligible for these features we must be 18 years or older and live in one of the Facebook Marketplace-supported countries.
Plus, there are no startup costs. In fact, in addition to having no initial investment costs, the selling fees are only 5% which is much lower than other selling platforms with 15% – 20%.
What’s more, Facebook Marketplace makes it easy to communicate with our customers by using Messenger. Since customer service is a cornerstone for a successful business, the importance of easy communication is key. Being able to connect and talk to our customers with Messenger to resolve any queries is a huge benefit.
In contrast, it is hard to use Facebook Marketplace outside of the US. To clarify, dropshippers outside of the US must use their personal account without the option to utilize key business tools.
Also, dropshippers must use location filters for their product listings. This is a disadvantage because our product won’t be able to be seen globally, but rather just in our proximity. Although we can’t reach a broad audience at once, there are benefits to a targeted approach. Notably, starting with a specific target is beneficial because we can personalize and easily test our products to see what works well.
Selling Channel Pros Cons
Shopify Hosted platform
Customization options
Pricing
Shipping discountsTransaction fees
Same market
Online credit card fees
eBay Easy to get started
Minimal investment required
eBay’s vast and loyal customer base worldwide Hard to finding reliable suppliers
Lack of customization
Competition is fierce
Wix Easy to build a store and connect it with a dropshipping app
Reasonably priced
Solid dropshipping apps in the Wix app store Not very flexible
Not many guides for using Wix for dropshipping
Facebook Marketplace We can dropship without a website
Communicate with customers through Facebook Messenger
No startup costs If we don’t live in the US, we have to use our personal account
Location filter for product listings
Interestingly, there is no right or wrong answer in terms of which selling channel is the ‘right one’ for our dropshipping business. Although all of these have the same purpose, their varying traits will align with our needs differently. So, taking into consideration how we want to operate our business and what best fits our dropshipping needs, we definitely won’t make a mistake choosing any of these channels.
To clarify, considering that these platforms are all super easy to use and very affordable, we have plenty of reasons to choose any of them. Additionally, they all save us a ton of money on startup costs allowing us to start dropshipping with minimal or no initial investment. Uniquely, all of these platforms support us, the dropshipper, throughout our dropshipping journey.
On the other hand, with a dropshipping automation tool like AutoDS we can operate multiple selling channels. To clarify, AutoDS is a dropshipping automation tool that automates the entire dropshipping process saving us time and energy. Plus, by utilizing this tool we can manage multiple channels under one screen. With that said, it has never been easier than today with AutoDS to take advantage of all the benefits across each platform.
Notably, as we consider these dropshipping reviews, we also need to think about scaling our business. Regardless of which selling channel we choose, manual dropshipping is a laborious and time-consuming task. From spending hours on finding the hottest products to manual order fulfillment, it can take up a lot of our time. Consequently, this will slow us down and limit our profit potential.
Alternatively, we can seamlessly run our eCommerce store by using AutoDS to automate our dropshipping business. Uniquely, most of the work is done by the AutoDS’ automation software, reducing errors in product imports and order fulfillment.
For example, we can see the benefits of using AutoDS to automate our dropshipping store when comparing manual and automated product importing. With manual product importing, we will have to invest a lot of time and effort in finding and manually importing the right products. However, with AutoDS, we can both automatically find hot products and import them with just one button click.
On top of that, AutoDS integrates with each of these four selling channels allowing us to manage everything under one dashboard. The integrations in tandem with all of AutoDS’ automation tools give us a winning combination that will help us scale faster and easier.
As a matter of fact, AutoDS has a myriad of dropshipping automation tools that will allow us to have complete control over our business:
Plus, AutoDS helps us continuously grow our business with their informative blog, youtube best sellers playlist, eBooks, and more!
Yes, dropshipping is legal. It is a perfectly legitimate method of order fulfillment. Just remember to protect yourself with a Dropshipping Agreement Contract.
Of course! You can make money from dropshipping because it’s a low-risk, low-investment, high-profit business model. Furthermore, it is low-risk because we can easily test products and change product listings since we don’t hold the inventory. Plus, the profit potential is high since a minimal investment is required to start.
Yup! Since there are no upfront investments, we won’t be spending any major cash upfront. Additionally, if we dropship from a marketplace like eBay, startup costs will be virtually nonexistent.
First and foremost, you’ll need to do product and niche research and figure out what you’ll sell. Then, you’ll find the suppliers that fit your needs and build an online store. From there, you can either sell on a marketplace or create your own eCommerce store website.
In summary, we can make an informed decision about where to start our dropshipping business by utilizing these dropshipping reviews. Moreover, we are now in the golden age of dropshipping, where we can have our pick of the crop from these great selling channels.
In addition, we can say goodbye to time-consuming, tedious, and strenuous dropshipping by automating our operations. Now, we can start building our dropshipping store with the right tools and information.
Lastly, to help you grow your dropshipping business, check out the following articles:
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