Dropshipping is changing the face of e-commerce and online retail through its unique fulfillment model of orders. As shipping products directly to consumers is fulfilled by merchants, storing inventory is no longer a concern for dropshippers – a testament to the efficiency of this business model.
One platform is well-known in the dropshipping realm, and particularly on Shopify – Oberlo. For many dropshippers, Oberlo is the go-to dropshipping platform for simplifying the dropshipping process, as well as streamlining business processes involved in marketing products, attracting customers, and generating sales.
However, while Oberlo may appear to be the best dropshipping option for dropshipping on Shopify, there are some limitations that come with it too. For one, Oberlo has no known option to work for standalone websites, as it exclusively integrates with Shopify. This is disadvantageous for dropshippers interested in cross-platform integration, especially for WordPress and WooCommerce clients. Another limitation of Oberlo is that AliExpress is the only supported merchant on the platform.
Due to Oberlo’s limitations, other dropshipping alternatives are now being widely used by the dropshipping community. They include SaleHoo, Modalyst, Printify, DropshipMe, Spocket, WooDropship, Importify, and Dropified. This article will introduce these alternatives and how they compare to Oberlo as a platform.
SaleHoo
Based in New Zealand, SaleHoo is an e-commerce platform that caters to wholesalers, retailers, and dropshippers. The platform is intended for users to quickly find the right and reliable merchants for different product niches, making it a great alternative to Oberlo.
SaleHoo’s features include access to its wide selection of products, involvement in peer-to-peer forums, comprehensive videos, step-by-step guides, and the privilege of contacting SaleHoo’s responsive customer service via phone, email, and live chat.
SaleHoo charges a fixed price of $67 for one year of access to their platform. A recently offered subscription amounting to $127 for a lifetime membership includes access to all of SaleHoo’s services. SaleHoo also offers a 60-day grace period, which gives you plenty of time to check out the platform and see if you like it. If not, you can get your money back.
Advantages over Oberlo:
- It is beginner-friendly because of its comprehensive training videos and step-by-step guides
- Houses over 25 million products—1.6 million of which are products from reputable brands from more than 8,000 carefully vetted wholesale and dropshipping merchants
- Has more affordable subscription tiers compared to Oberlo
Modalyst
Unlike the AliExpress-centric Oberlo, Modalyst’s merchants include renowned private American, British, Canadian, Australian, and European brand manufacturers and indie brands in their extensive catalog of products. Modalyst carries brand-name manufacturers with domestically located warehouses and storage sites, ensuring that fulfillment is as timely as possible.
Modalyst has three subscription tiers—Hobby, Start-Up, and Pro. The Hobby tier is Modalyst’s free plan, which includes access to solely non-premium suppliers and a product limit of 25. Modalyst charges $35 per month for the StartUp plan, which provides access to solely non-premium suppliers and a product limit of 250. Lastly, the Pro subscription option is priced at $90 per month, inclusive of access to vetted premium and non-premium suppliers, as well as unlimited product listings.
Advantages over Oberlo:
- Carries brand-name products from the USA, UK, Canada, Europe, and Australia
- Integrates with Shopify and BigCommerce
- Fulfills orders faster because products are shipped domestically
Printify
While Oberlo features ready-to-ship products, Printify is a print-on-demand (POD) service operating on a dropshipping model. Printify employs lean manufacturing; in other words, merchandise is only manufactured at the time when an order is already placed and paid for.
Through Printify, custom-made brand signs and logos can be printed on a desired merchandise and mass-produced. Examples of merchandise include skirts, sneakers, tank tops, boots, sandals, sweaters, leggings, backpacks, blankets, phone cases, handbags, and mugs. This flexibility cannot be found on Oberlo, as it sells ready-made products from overseas that cannot be further modified to customer specifications.
In addition to integration with Etsy and WooCommerce, Printify is linked to over 200 independent print providers from the USA, UK, and China. We recommend choosing an independent printing service nearest to the location of your customers to ensure a faster fulfillment of orders.
Advantages over Oberlo:
- It is a print-on-demand (POD) service
- It is more scalable and flexible than Oberlo
- Has cross-platform integration with standalone e-commerce marketplaces such as Etsy and WooCommerce
DropshipMe
DropshipMe is a WordPress plugin that is an excellent alternative to Oberlo. It has an extensive selection of over 50,000 products from trustworthy AliExpress merchants that can be directly imported into WordPress sites with ease.
DropshipMe offers customized, professionally edited product information such as descriptions and titles by default. This means DropshipMe users would not need to do the hard work of customizing products and optimizing them for marketability.
You can install the DropshipMe plugin for free. Upon installation, dropshippers can import up to 50 products for free. For $29, users are entitled to 100 product imports and 10 bonus products. For $119, users are allowed 500 product imports and 200 bonus products. For $199, users can import up to 1000 products with 500 bonus products.
Advantages over Oberlo:
- Offers seamless integration with standalone websites such as WordPress and WooCommerce
- Automatically customizes product information
- It comes with one-time subscription tiers instead of monthly charges.
Spocket
Spocket’s reach of domestic merchants makes it a leading competitor of Oberlo in terms of the duration of fulfilling orders. While other dropshipping platforms like Oberlo primarily source from AliExpress, which usually takes weeks to a month to deliver products, Spocket can deliver within days. This will significantly impact your customer’s satisfaction and, in turn, resulting in fewer delays and refund requests.
Oberlo is limited chiefly to offering ready-made products from AliExpress, whereas Spocket’s range of products is more flexible and scalable. Aside from mass-produced products, Spocket also provides access to print-on-demand (POD) services.
Maximizing profit is within Spocket’s interests because users enjoy pre-negotiated discounts for up to 60% that can be applied to products about to be imported to e-commerce stores. Users also get to avail of a free 14-day trial of Spocket’s services upon registration—meaning there is no cost upfront.
Advantages over Oberlo:
- It has merchants based in the USA, EU, UK, New Zealand, and Australia
- Integrates with WooCommerce and Shopify
- Dropshippers can ensure quality by ordering samples prior to listing any given item on their store.
WooDropship
WooDropship is a more advanced alternative to Oberlo due to its seamless automated updates in pricing, variants, and inventory through AliExpress. Compatibility is not an issue with WooDropship as it works excellent with advanced plugins and themes in most mainstream e-commerce sites.
Besides having a one-click product importation from AliExpress, dropshippers using WooDropship can customize products by editing descriptions, titles, variants, images, pricing, and margins necessary to attract the right market for a range of products.
As predetermined product images from AliExpress sometimes have watermarks, WooDropship’s image editor can edit out distracting elements in product images. This is a huge plus as how you present your images to your customers will have a big impact on their purchasing decisions.
Advantages over Oberlo:
- It can be integrated with WordPress and WooCommerce
- Has easy, intuitive product customization
- Includes a built-in image editor for editing images to your desired specifications.
Importify
Importify is beginner-friendly with its intuitive user interface, one-click product importation feature, and 24/7 customer support. It integrates top products from merchants to e-commerce sites such as AliExpress, Amazon, and Etsy, to name a few.
Importify offers product customization, automatic product updates on inventory, pricing, availability, easy setup of brands and variants through pre-population, and integration of existing products.
Paid tiers include Basic, Premium, and Gold. Importify charges $14.95 per month for the Basic plan, $27.95 per month for Premium, and $37.95 for Gold.
Advantages over Oberlo:
- Integrates with platforms such as Shopify, Wix, Jumpseller, and WooCommerce
- Has the ePacket shipping option for products originating from China
- Offers semi-automatic order fulfillment for Chinese sites like AliExpress and DHgate, as well as US-based sites like Amazon and Wonify
Dropified
Dropshippers can import products from overseas suppliers like AliExpress and local marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Walmart.
As of this writing, Oberlo does not have a similar feature close to AliExtractor. AliExtractor is a valuable tool for product research and metric generation, performance analysis, and feedback gathering.
Dropified has CallFlex and TubeHunt, respectively. CallFlex is a telephone service within the Dropified interface where dropshippers can make and forward calls and leave voicemail messages.
On the other hand, TubeHunt is a video feature available to all users under the Premier plan. This feature can search up a video on YouTube that best shows the product you are selling.
Using the TubeHunt feature, you will see a significant reduction in your video advertisements costs.
Advantages over Oberlo:
- Integrates with multiple platforms besides Shopify such as WooCommerce, BigCommerce, GrooveKart, and CommerceHQ.
- Is partnered with AliExtractor for optimizing product research
- Has two features unique to Dropified that are not found in Oberlo—CallFlex, and TubeHunt.
8 Best Oberlo Alternatives for 2022 - Conclusion
Every dropshipping alternative featured in this article has different features that make them distinct from Oberlo. Whether you are looking for international merchants, an automatic customization feature, faster fulfillment of orders, or a built-in image editor, you know what alternatives to Oberlo best meet your needs and ultimately cater to your business goals.
Remember that there is no one-size-fits-all platform for businesses with different needs. No matter what alternative you will choose, all of these dropshipping platforms have the shared aim of making the dropshipping experience worthwhile to help businesses achieve their goals.
