Shopify vs Wordpress//Woocommerce — Dropshipping Questions

[terezek]

Hi there,

I am thinking of building a dropshipping store but I have some questions that I hope you'll answer.

First of all, I have experience with Wordpress, I've built 30-40 sites in the past with Elementor Pro but none of them was an ecommerce store.
I 've never used Woocommerce or any plugin like Alidropship/Zendrop/Dsers/CJdropshipping and others that I found while I was looking for info.


1. Do you recommend Shopify or Wordpress as a platform for a dropshipping store?
Why?

2. Is Woocommerce stable as a store and does it have reliable payment gateways?
Does anyone use it for dropshipping? Which plugins do you use?

It seems like Shopify dominates the dropshipping area.
Apparently it gives a ton of money to youtubers and things like affiliate shit so I can't understand clearly
which is the best and I don't want to figure it out with trial and error!

To be honest I've never had problems with Wordpress but I need some feedback here as I never used Woocommerce and fullfill orders.
I don't want to have problems!


3. What plugin/app do you use for droshipping? Which is the best?
Oberlo, Alidropship, Dsers, Cjdropshipping, Zendrop, Spocket, Syncee?

4. I'll begin as a sole propriator (sole trader) and I'll register a company in the future, ideally when profits be >$1K
At least that's the plan. Will I have a problem if I don't register a company for a couple of months early on to test some products?
Have you done it?

5. I am from Europe. Should I focus on Europe, on USA or both?
Is Europe better for dropshipping stores?

6. What address do you give for the dropshipping company?
Do you use a virtual address in New York for example?

7. What's the best advice you can give me?
Something you wish you knew when you first started.


Thank you

 

[koulde]

My experience with 2 dropshipping sites apparel niche in the past 4 years and average monthly $318 and $230 (no share, no ads, no effort, just host/domain expense initially).

1- I use woocommerce, nothing wrong with shopify but like I mentioned I put no effort so sub expense is not for me.

2- Yes stable enough and customizable, I commissioned new payment gateways from upwork/fiverr (since covid, many fintech companies here made their wallet debut)

3- Initially I was doing it manually since I didnt want to spend pro sub for any plugin (nor nulled obviously), then spent on alidropshop.

4- think it depends on geo, here: few years ago many individuals ran their business without any paper while others applied for 'productive families certification' (its similar to commercial registration but aimed for low income households to be legit). It was fine until a wave of scams/schemes hit the region and the outcry forced the chamber of commerce to issue new restrictions, prior to covid the gov announce the 'virtual commercial registration' you apply for a business online and be safe under the commerce laws umbrella (I noticed international sites approve the virtual CRs, hosting companies, couriers, paypal, etc.).

5- Can't help with this answer, I made sure my market is local. Even made some photos localized by photoshopping the landscape to local city skylines.

6- As mentioned in answer 4 it depends, im paying already for a few business addresses so I have chosen one of them. I know others rent out a table at one of those co-worker space offices and have it as the address (of course this is primarily for gmb).

7- I didn't spend a penny on ads, if you plan to then have a respected amount to promo with and not change money for insta ads.

Please consider my answers coming from an amatuer dropshipper since I can't depend on this income as stable nor I want to since I do other works.

 

[terezek]

Thanks Koulde!

Does anyone have experience with both platforms on a dropshipping store?
Any suggestions?

 

[Durangoal]

Thanks Koulde!

Does anyone have experience with both platforms on a dropshipping store?
Any suggestions?

I have used both platforms and I can tell you both have their advantages and disadvantages with just my own personal experiences. Perhaps you neeed to check YouTube for a detailed overview about them!

For me I’ll have to go with Shopify, simply because it has a superior interface! I really like how its dashboard is intuitive and clean! Woocommerce isn’t so clean!

Anyways here my personal experiences with both.

Woocomerce is a functional e-commerce platform no doubt and the best part is, it’s free! Right? Naaa... a few key Reporting plugin is PAID. When I first started using Woo. I was running campaigns and couldn’t find my stats on:

Add to carts
Reached Checkouts
.... and other reporting metrics

Those are vital infos right? You would want to know if your campaigns are on the right track! Well, after some digging turns out I needed to pay for a plug-in to access those stats... that ticked me off! I’ll rather pay Shopify $29 and have my full Analytics/Reporting page I need, with a cleaner interface!

That’s my disadvantage for Woo. For Shopify it’s the cost, the business license requirements, the fear of being banned at any point. Those are my disadvantages.

if you use Shopify and set a third party payment gateway like PayPal as your payment gateway; not only would you have to pay for PayPal transaction fee when a sale comes in! You still have to pay Shopify transaction fee per sale also. And Shopify adds it up ready to charge you by the end of the month!

You could get a bill of $$$$$ depending on how many sales you got in a month! The only way to escape these charges from them is to use their own Shopify payments! In my case I was selling a high ticket product about $400 per sale and the transaction
Shopify was about $8. Do the math, if I got 10 sales - that’s a total of $80 waiting for me + subscription bill of $29 + apps fees .... by the end of the month.

Shopify isn’t for cheapskates - bottom line!

With woocommerce you could find a Nulled plugin if you don’t want to pay for it - but with Shopify there are NO nulled apps - if it’s not free and you want it - you have to pay bro!

But I still love Shopify especially now that I use Shopify payments

Cheers

 

[terezek]

Thank you Durangoal!

In my country Shopify Payments is not an option. FML

I really like the idiot-proof GUI of Shopify and the one click all shit.
But the fees!!!

My real fear is that I would pay $200-$300/month for a couple of months and honestly I don't know if I'll have any sales.

What would you do if you were in my place?
Would you still go with Shopify + Paypal/Stripe for its ease of use/reliability or try Woocommerce and risk having problems?

 

[Durangoal]

I would go with Shopify and I’m not sure if you use Stripe, they still charge a Shopify transaction fee in my case was PayPal

I will choose shopify because I’ll be deliberate about getting sales!!!

You should be positive and get sales from the get go!

You need to test products wisely not to lose products before you find a winner!

Have a plan, set up an Hybrid store (similar products in a niche) - test $5 a day on each product - move prospective winners to Single product stores and scale!

 

[terezek]

Precious Info here!
Thanks Durangoal!

Don't want to bother you but can you suggest me some apps on Shopify?
Like VITALS, Klaviyo etc.

Could you tell me which you use and have helped you/not having any problems?

 

[Durangoal]

Precious Info here!
Thanks Durangoal!

Don't want to bother you but can you suggest me some apps on Shopify?
Like VITALS, Klaviyo etc.

Could you tell me which you use and have helped you/not having any problems?

Yeah those two are great! It’s really not about apps! It’s about the product - if it’s an easy sell or hard sell!

I use a reviews app, pop up, live chat ... gift with purchase app,

 

[lck1115]

In my opinion, use woocommerce to get started. Just to save money as you don't know if you will find a earing product.

When you find some products and make money on them, transfer to Shopify. It is stable and easy to scale up.

 

[terezek]

Thank you guys, I believe I will flip a coin, I can't choose!

 

[TheLovelyUnicron]

1. I use both, and that's because I am always second guessing my choice. I love the customization on Woocommerce, but sometimes I get carried away and end up making too many optimization way too soon without A/B testing. I keep a shopify store on the side with vanilla settings just to compare with my Woocommerce stores.

2. I personally use Paypal Payments Pro, it is reliable. And sure people might tell you that you can lose your Paypal account because of refunds/disputes etc.. but, only beginners suffer from that problem.
I use it for dropshipping, and as for my plugins, every store is different and a lot of the work & optimization is done by coding as opposed to third party plugins.

3. Cjdropshipping, sourcinbox are your go to friends.

4. For me, all is virtual..

5. Find a country, dominate it.

6. Virtual address, or an address of a warehouse from cj or sourcinbox.

7. Don't get started with FB ads, just install the pixel on your site and gather traffic from other sources. Create look-a-like once you have enough data, you will save plenty of hard earned money. Best of luck!

 

[terezek]

Thank you for your answer LovelyUnicron, it's really appreciated!

 

[Robinhood1234]

Hi there,

I am thinking of building a dropshipping store but I have some questions that I hope you'll answer.

First of all, I have experience with Wordpress, I've built 30-40 sites in the past with Elementor Pro but none of them was an ecommerce store.
I 've never used Woocommerce or any plugin like Alidropship/Zendrop/Dsers/CJdropshipping and others that I found while I was looking for info.


1. Do you recommend Shopify or Wordpress as a platform for a dropshipping store?
Why?

2. Is Woocommerce stable as a store and does it have reliable payment gateways?
Does anyone use it for dropshipping? Which plugins do you use?

It seems like Shopify dominates the dropshipping area.
Apparently it gives a ton of money to youtubers and things like affiliate shit so I can't understand clearly
which is the best and I don't want to figure it out with trial and error!

To be honest I've never had problems with Wordpress but I need some feedback here as I never used Woocommerce and fullfill orders.
I don't want to have problems!


3. What plugin/app do you use for droshipping? Which is the best?
Oberlo, Alidropship, Dsers, Cjdropshipping, Zendrop, Spocket, Syncee?

4. I'll begin as a sole propriator (sole trader) and I'll register a company in the future, ideally when profits be >$1K
At least that's the plan. Will I have a problem if I don't register a company for a couple of months early on to test some products?
Have you done it?

5. I am from Europe. Should I focus on Europe, on USA or both?
Is Europe better for dropshipping stores?

6. What address do you give for the dropshipping company?
Do you use a virtual address in New York for example?

7. What's the best advice you can give me?
Something you wish you knew when you first started.


Thank you

1)shopify
2) didnt personally use woo-commerce for dropshipping but many of my friend use and they seem to be very stable
3) there are many plugin(apps) you need to be specific for which purpose you need then I can recommend some free good apps
4) no you wont face any problem ... but sometimes for running ads facebook wants to verify your business
5) I would say go for Australia,Canada,USA,uk
6)you can give your europe address as long as the service is good these things don't matter
7) focus on finding your winning product and learn how to scale your business

 

[Natro]

I totally agree! I use Woocommerce too

 

[GGAds]

shopify is the most friendly and suportive app but the fee is the mosy expensive