AliDropship vs. Shopify

Intro

AliDropship and Shopify are competitors…but somewhat indirectly.

Shopify, at its core, is an eCommerce platform where you can build your online store, sell your products and manage orders. It integrates with a large range of third party apps, such as dropshipping tools, email marketing add-ons and subscription managers so that it can be a whole eCommerce solution for online businesses.

AliDropship is a plugin which can be used with WooCommerce (the eCommerce branch of WordPress) to import items directly from AliExpress into your store to dropship. With the plugin you receive complimentary online store templates for WordPress or you can purchase a custom built online store for an additional cost.

It’s important to restate that AliDropship does not integrate with Shopify, so if you haven’t decided what platform to use yet, you may wish to check out our comparison of WooCommerce and Shopify so you can decide which one is going to be the best for you to run your dropshipping business on.

Of course, there are other dropshipping tools which can be used with Shopify, which we mention in the Top Alternatives Section below.

General Overview

Dropshipping is an increasingly popular business model which involves listing products to sell on your online store and getting your suppliers to directly fulfill orders, meaning you never have to hold your own inventory. You sell products at a higher price than they cost you and your supplier will ship them to your customer on behalf of your business.

Dropshipping is relatively easy and low-cost to set up, which makes it an attractive option for new online sellers.

In this article we take a look at what AliDropship and Shopify do, their advantages and disadvantages and mention some dropshipping tools which can be used with Shopify.

By the end of it, you should have a good idea about how each can be used to help you build a dropshipping business.

What is the Difference between AliDropship and Shopify?

AliDropship

AliDropship is a plugin which can be used with the WooCommerce eCommerce platform to import products directly into your online store to dropship from AliExpress. The plugin is available for a one-off cost of $89 USD and can be installed as a Google Chrome browser extension for easy access.

You can also purchase a custom store, which AliDropship developers will build for you on WooCommerce at an additional cost (starting from $299 USD) or premium store templates for WooCommerce ($300 USD).

Below is an example of a premium AliDropship store template which comes with all its products preloaded and costs $300 USD.

The AliDropship plugin comes packed with additional tools for dropshippers, beyond the easy AliExpress product import feature. These offerings include:

• Unlimited product imports and orders
• Automated ordering: Place bulk dropshipping orders in just a few steps, rather than manually through AliExpress.
• Automated pricing: Automatically update product prices based on a range of pricing rules.
• Marketing tools: Import customer reviews, generate discount coupons, create SEO product tags and employ abandoned cart recovery methods.

A disadvantage of AliDropship is that you will need to identify suitable products for your store on AliExpress by yourself. Because AliExpress does not pre-vet their sellers, it is advisable to take precautions to ensure you do not end up selling poor quality products or dealing with unreliable suppliers.

We suggest ordering product samples before you start selling. Then you can check the quality out and see how easy your suppliers are to work with.

Of course, there are dropshipping tools which pre-vet AliExpress products for you, so you can skip the samples and get straight onto selling. We take a look at some of these options in the Top Alternatives section below.

Shopify

Shopify is what WooCommerce is to AliDropship - that is a platform which can be used to build eCommerce stores and handle online payment processing.

Shopify offers a powerful solution for ambitious entrepreneurs wanting to build and run a stunning store, with great order management and marketing tools. Using Shopify, you can track your order, revenue and shipping, all from the Shopify dashboard. You can make notes on orders, mark them as fulfilled after you’ve shipped them out and manage all your customer information.

Shopify integrates with an extensive range of third party apps, including dropshipping tools similar to AliDropship, which can be used to import products into your Shopify store.

Stores built on Shopify include eCommerce successes The Oodie and Tidal Hair. Even though they are now bringing in the big bucks, their stores are still proudly powered by Shopify.

Using Shopify involves selecting a suitable membership for your needs. For most business owners, this will be their Basic plan ($29 USD per month), which you can use to build your store, sell on it and manage your orders, plus a point-of-sale system for if you sell in person as well as online.

This, of course, is a very brief introduction to a full list of features on Shopify which can be used to fulfill a wide range of eCommerce needs.

In the table below, we take a look at the main features each company offers to give you a better idea of how AliDropship and Shopify fulfill different needs.

Advantages and Disadvantages of AliDropship

The AliDropship tool comes with an extensive range of features to support its core function as a plugin to easily import AliExpress products into WooCommerce stores.

Because the AliDropship plugin works directly with AliExpress, there is no product vetting process so it will be up to you to find reliable suppliers. This is likely the major disadvantage of the tool. We recommend you order product samples before you begin selling them, but this can be a time consuming process to arrange and wait for them to be delivered to you.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Shopify

Shopify is one of the most powerful eCommerce platforms of the web and is used by millions of online business owners to host their online stores.

While it doesn’t offer a built-in dropshipping tool, there are a range of these available on the Shopify App Store to make running your dropshipping store easier. We mention some of these in the Top Alternatives section.

Top Alternatives

AliDropship can be a great option for you if you want to dropship on the WooCommerce platform, but if you want to work with Shopify, then you will need to look elsewhere.

Fortunately, there are a lot of dropshipping tools that can be used with Shopify. SaleHoo Dropship is one such tool that can be used to easily import pre-vetted AliExpress products into your Shopify store.

If you didn’t catch it earlier, we compared WooCommerce and Shopify on our blog, if you’re still deciding on which platform you want to set up your store on.

To discover comparisons of other dropshipping tools that work with Shopify, take a look at the box below.