WooCommerce Dropshipping as a Successful Business Model

Last updated - September 28, 2018

Dropshipping can be a low risk, highly profitable business model. eCommerce store owners across the world try this to improve their business prospects. Basically, in the dropshipping model, you don’t have huge investments in the inventory, storage or fulfillment. That means you will be spared of the complex requirements of inventory management, warehousing and order fulfillment. As more people show interest in dropshipping, more solutions are also coming to the fore. WooCommerce, being a popular eCommerce platform, has quite a bit of reliable solutions for dropshipping. This article explores the prospects of Woocommerce dropshipping and lists the best plugins to help store owners set it up.

WooCommerce dropshipping

You might be wondering how as a WooCommerce store owner you can manage dropshipping. Basically, you need to find wholesalers who would ship their products to your customers. This way, when a customer places an order on your store, it reaches the dropshipper in real time for fulfillment. As a result, you really can forget about the hassles related to warehousing and fulfillment. But how do you get this done on WooCommerce? That is where WooCommerce dropshipping plugins come into the picture. Firstly, let’s look at the best ones in more detail.

WooCommerce Dropshipping Extension

This WooCommerce extension helps you send automated notifications to your dropshipping partners when new orders are made on your store. When you have multiple suppliers dropshipping your products, the extension sort the products according to the supplier and notifies correctly. It also helps to automatically attach a PDF of the packing slip to the order notification mail. Actually, this enables blind dropshipping, as your customers would get your branding on their orders. Also, it allows the dropshipper to include a print of the package in the shipment. Furthermore, you can import the inventory of a dropshipper to your store, if provided in a CSV file.

The interface of the extension is not complicated, and you can set it up pretty easily too. Simply add the required details of a supplier to add one, and you can view the list. In addition, you can also customize how you want the email notification to appear to suppliers. The single site subscription of the extension would cost you $49. For 5 site subscription, you need to pay $99, and $149 for 25 site subscription.

Visit the extension page.

WooDropship

If you are specifically interested in doing AliExpress dropshipping on your WooCommerce store, you can use this plugin. AliExpress basically is an online marketplace with a great variety of products. Starting a dropshipping business with AliExpress is especially getting popular among store owners. Thankfully, WooDropship helps you automate your dropshipping process with AliExpress.

The integration of WooDropship helps you import AliExpress products to your WooCommerce store pretty easily. When you search for AliExpress products, you can actually view the ePacket availability as well. Furthermore, it offers features like product customization, pricing automation, and automatic order fulfillment. With the basic package of WooDropship, you can import 3000 product variants, and fulfill 100 orders per month. It would cost you $14 per month.

Go to the integration page.

WooCommerce Dropshippers

This plugin proves to be a great solution for WooCommerce dropshipping with a large number of satisfied users. Fundamentally, this plugin helps you create an additional user role on your WooCommerce admin side. Once this is set up, you can automate the notification process and open a communication channel with your suppliers. It enables you perfectly to be in control of the entire process, as you can monitor the progress of each of your orders at all times. Once a supplier fulfills the order, they will be able to notify you too. In addition, the suppliers can view their sales details on the store admin when logged in. And, you will have a clear idea of the pending due for each supplier.

The regular license of the plugin is $25.

Visit the plugin page.

YouDroop

YouDroop assists you to set up a successful dropshipping business. It provides a platform to help suppliers and retailers connect. Basically, suppliers can find numerous options to display their products. And retailers can get access to a larger number of products. You can easily import a large number of products to your WooCommerce store using a CSV file. And the free WordPress plugin helps you sync your WooCommerce store with YouDroop platform. Overall, YouDroop offers a smoother process to help you with your WooCommerce dropshipping needs. The basic plan would cost you €59 per month. Visit YouDroop website for more details.

Download the free synchronization plugin.

A WooCommerce shipping plugin to help with dropshipping

PluginHive Table Rate Shipping plugin is a great option to set a table to calculate shipping rates from a range of conditions. This provides a lot of flexibility when it comes to setting up different shipping options on your site. Normally in the case of dropshipping, you are dealing with different suppliers and diverse shipping methods. You can’t just set one shipping method and expect a reasonable return in such a scenario. The PluginHive Table Rate Shipping plugin would help you set different rates for different shipping methods. Additionally, the plugin has many more custom options that would enable you with a comprehensive and robust shipping solution.

The single site license of the plugin is available for purchase at $69. You can also get 5 site and 25 site licenses at $99 and $199 respectively.

Visit the plugin page.

Advantages of WooCommerce Dropshipping

You can consider dropshipping as a complete business model, or as an enforcement to your current WooCommerce store. Whichever way you see it, there are some obvious advantages to dropshipping. With a set of awesome WooCommerce plugins to help you automate the whole process, you can forget about the hassles. Now, let’s look at some value addition that dropshipping model can bring to your business.

It will help you expand your product line

Naturally, a growth in your product range is expected when your eCommerce business stabilizes. The dropshipping model offers great scope in managing this aspect without considerable investment. More products in your store mean you will be catering to an increased range of users and potential customers. Overall, you will be able to broaden your store’s products and customer reach using dropshipping. All without the worries of procurement, warehousing, fulfillment, etc. In addition, you need to take an only lesser risk and can scale your business more readily.

Gives you an economically viable option to start a business

When you are just starting an online business, you may not be in a position to invest a lot in warehousing and inventory management. In such a scenario, dropshipping may prove to be quite an economical option. And if you consider the perspective of suppliers, they will find their products moving faster and easier. So it’s a win-win for both retailers and suppliers.

Lesser operational hassles

When you are selling your own line of products through an online store, you may have to face quite a lot of hassles. With the dropshipping model, you are spared of all such troubles. However, you need to make collaborations with multiple, reliable suppliers though.

Better ways to scale

Scaling your business with dropshipping is particularly easy compared to a normal business. With lesser resources, you can diversify and expand your business, when trying the dropshipping model.

Conclusion

Dropshipping is a great option to expand your business without major investment. WooCommerce provides awesome solutions to set up a hassle-free dropshipping business model. This article has offered a glimpse of some of the best WooCommerce dropshipping plugins that you can use. Let us know any queries or suggestions. You can also read another article to understand the scope of dropshipping better.