Since the dropshipping industry has started growing, dropshipping platforms have started to help the everyday person make their own dropshipping dreams a reality. This means that dropshippers have options to choose from when deciding which platform best suits their needs. So which one works best for you? Let’s take a look at how Shop1 stacks up against the competition. Today we will look at Shopify.
What is Shopify
The first thing to understand is what Shopify actually is. Shopify by itself is not a dropshipping platform. It is an e-commerce platform designed to give customers their own ecommerce website with a payment processing feature and inventory management. You can bring your own inventory or upload it from other suppliers. To put this in a nutshell, Shopify is simply an e-commerce website platform.
So if Shopify isn’t really a dropshipping platform, then why do they advertise for it?
Well, because Shopify has found a way around this. It has partnered in one way or another with a few other companies to provide the dropshipping services it lacks to its customers. Oberlo, Sprocket, and Aliexpress are three examples of this. Using Oberlo as an example, customers would use the app to search for the products they want to sell and then import them into their Shopify store. Oberlo will be the one that communicates with the supplier to handle stock updates, orders, and shipping.
Shopify handles the payment and web store duties. Curious about the pros and cons of using an app to connect to Shopify to build a dropshipping business? Keep on reading.
What does this mean for me if I am a dropshipper?
It means that you have to have multiple accounts and multiple software programs to get your dropshipping store working. And because Oberlo and the other apps also do not cover everything, you will most likely end up having to install and pay for 6+ apps before you have a fully functional website. The average app costs you around $25 per month.
As you can tell, that can add up pretty quickly. And because they partner with Aliexpress as well, they tend to offer a lot of products from Chinese based suppliers, which extends shipping time and customer service situations by a large amount.
How does this affect my wallet?
This is a good question. These extra apps Shopify needs to use to have a functioning dropshipping business are not included for free. They often have their very own monthly subscription plan … on top of whatever monthly plan you have with Shopify. Then if you want your own website domain name this is another fee. On top of this, Shopify also charges you a payment processing fee up to 2.9% + 30¢ per order.
Here is a good analogy for you. Have you ever gone online to order a pizza and then looked at their deals? You find the deal you want, take the time to place the order with your preferred toppings, and press the checkout button. A beautiful large 3 topping pizza delivery for $12.99 is about to be yours. You can practically taste it now. Then suddenly you realize you also need parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes. Those aren’t free anymore. If you want them, you have to pay for them there or go down to the grocery store and get them, which defeats the purpose of ordering delivery. You add these items on for an additional charge and then go to press check out only to see delivery fees, the cost of the tip, and any kind of service fee that may be charged. You’ve come this far and you are hungry, so you check out and end up paying for it. Guess what? That $12.99 pizza just turned into a $24.61 pizza.
The thing is you don’t always realize what you are actually spending when you buy things a la carte like this. Suddenly you could have almost gotten 2 of those pizzas by going down the road and picking up the pizza yourself. How does your budget like that? It doesn’t. This is what it is like using Shopify. You pay for Shopify. Then you pay for Oberlo. Then you pay for your domain name. And then you pay for “insert an item here”.
How does Shop1 fix this problem for me?
Shop1’s platform handles all of this in one platform. Literally. Our belief is that a customer should be able to come to us, choose one of our three packages, and have everything they want included in one per-month plan. Shop1 can handle advanced dropshipping needs as well, but specialty situations like that shouldn’t be the norm for everyone in our minds.
Shop1 uses U.S. based suppliers to provide you with thousands of products directly through your Shop1 dashboard. We handle supplier and product management, providing you with your very own e-commerce web store, payment processing (No extra fee!), and depending on your plan, even live training! You have the choice of 3 different website templates to choose from so you can fit your store’s style to your own.
Shop1’s all-in-one platform simply covers it all for you with no extra subscription necessary. The world is full of surprises, but the cost of your dropshipping plan should not be one of them. In the end Shop1’s platform does something that Shopify simply can’t do by itself. It gives you more than just a website sales platform. It gives you a business and the peace of mind that your budget surprises won’t come from us. Which sounds better to you? Get your future started and create your Shop1 store today!
Paying the Suppliers
Suppliers require the money up front before they will ship the product, which means your credit card has to be on file with all of the different suppliers being used. That is a lot of transactions to try and keep track of! Additionally, suppliers are not always very flexible with payment methods. Because you have a Shop1 store, the payment for the products is already handled along with the automatic fulfillment process. Since you don’t have to pay the supplier first, you aren’t floating that balance on your card waiting for the full payment. You get the profits deposited into your account weekly. This gives you even more time to drive traffic to your store and convert more sales.
With Shopify, this works differently. They process the payment from the customer, you receive the order notification, and you must go and pay the supplier directly with your payment method and get the item shipped. Then Shopify takes 2.9% of the purchase plus a 30 cent transaction fee out of that. It takes up to 3 business days for Shopify to pay you the transaction amount minus fees. From there, banks oftentimes have a 2 business day processing period. This means it can take 5 business days to get your payment. processing and deposit to your bank account. Shopify takes 3 days for processing transactions and banks take an average of 2 business days to process.2.9% + 30 cents.
