AliDropship Plugin – Firm Funder

AliExpress Drop Shipping Q&A series №1: AliDropship Plugin

Do you remember our project managers team we introduced recently?

These awesome fellows deal with all the questions and requests that come from you and your fellow dropshippers!

Some of these questions are really unique, but of course, many of the questions are similar or even identical.

To deal with it, we have created a special knowledge base where you can find answers for the vast majority of the most common questions.

Still, we found it necessary to make several articles dedicated to the most popular questions. We are going to do it on a regular basis – this way, you will always be able to find something helpful.

This series of our Q&A session is all about AliDropship plugin – we have collected top 10 questions that we get from our clients and readers most often.

So here we go!

1. What is AliDropship plugin?

Simply speaking, AliDropship plugin is an additional piece of technology that you can install on your WordPress website. It will work with WooCommerce as well!

With the help of this plugin, you can easily build your own drop shipping store.

What can you do after you’ve installed the plugin?

Filter and search products on AliExpress and import them to your website in a few clicks
Get the product info updated automatically
Quickly and easily set a price markup for your items
Automatically get in touch with AliExpress sellers to fulfill your clients’ orders
Track orders and automatically notify your clients about their current status
Customize your store and make it look unique and memorable
Get an access to all-in-one dashboard helping you manage the whole thing
See the live statistics about your store performance
And many many more!

With the plugin, you are fully independent with your business choices.

It’s up to you what products to sell, what markup percent to add, and how to run your store.

Basically, you’re your own boss now!

2. Can I start drop shipping business living in my country?

OF COURSE!

The whole model of drop shipping business means that you are free to do it from ANY point on the globe. AliDropship plugin has no limitations as well – you can use it in any country.

Speaking of the geography, it’s important to say you can use AliDropship plugin to customize your store if you’re targeting some specific country.

Maybe you just want to go global, and this is awesome.

But if you want to work with people from some exact country or region, you can easy make your store appealing for them.

How?

Well, first of all, you can set any currency you like. US dollars, euros, British pounds, etc. – you are free to choose any national currency to make your store visitors comfortable. They will see this currency in items’ price, and also on the checkout page when they are ready to make the payment.

Secondly, remember that the language matters! For example, when you’re editing single product pages to make them look good, you can import customer reviews from AliExpress. That’s a really good thing because people trust other clients’ reviews, right?

Thanks to the plugin, you can automatically translate the reviews left in any foreign language. Or alternatively, import only the reviews left by a citizen of a specific country – the plugin can do this, too.

3. What is the difference between AliDropship plugin and AliPlugin?

Oh, we’re speaking of 2 really different things now, so be attentive!

AliPlugin is an affiliate plugin. You can’t build an independent store with it.

Yes, AliPlugin lets you import products from AliExpress, but your site will NOT be a marketplace. When your store visitors click on a product, they are redirected to AliExpress, and that’s where they make a purchase. With this type of business, your profit is the commission for every purchase that happened on AliExpress with your help.

At the same time, AliDropship plugin is the thing that helps you build your very own drop shipping store. You’re a full owner, and all the purchases happen in your store.

4. How many sites can I create with the Plugin?

When you buy AliDropship plugin, you get your own personal license key.

This key is valid for one website/domain name. But if you decide to create another webstore in future, you can transfer your license to it for free.

5. Is $89 a one-time payment?

Yes, it is!

You only need to pay ONCE.

When you buy AliDropship plugin, you get a lifetime license. You make only one payment to get the plugin, there are no regular payments or any hidden fees.

6. Can I use AliDropship plugin with WooCommerce?

Sure!

AliDropship plugin has 2 different versions: the original AliDropship, and AliDropship Woo.

So, if you need a plugin for WooCommerce, it is better to choose AliDropship Woo.

Check out this guide to learn more about AliDropship Woo.

7. Can I switch to AliDropship Woo plugin in the future?

Yes, you can.

Please remember that all of your settings will be lost in this case.

The original AliDropship plugin and AliDropship Woo are not compatible with each other. So, you will need to reinstall your WordPress, and start your website from scratch.

On the bright side, you won’t have to buy another license key! Just let us know, and we will reset the license you already have.

8. Is AliDropship plugin compatible with Shopify?

No, it is not. AliDropship only works on WordPress-based dropshipping sites.

9. What are the payment gateways available?

These are payment gateways integrated with the original AliDropship plugin:

PayPal
2Checkout
Stripe
net
PayU
Payubiz
PayU Latam
PayPlug
DusuPay
Pin Payments

If your webstore is based on WooCommerce, there are tons of gateways to choose from! Please check out this guide to learn which payment gateways you can use.

10. What themes & design can I use?

Again, there are differences.

The original AliDropship supports our built-in themes only – you can take a look at them here.

AliDropship Woo plugin is compatible with any existing WooCommerce theme – feel free to use anything you fancy!

Well, this is it.

These were the top 10 questions about AliDropship plugin we most commonly get.

And the topic for our next Q&A series will be…

…DROP SHIPPING STORE MARKETING AND PROMOTION!

So if you have any questions related to the topic, feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

And if you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask them as well!

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Dropshipping

Drop Shipping for Beginners: Q&A Series #3

Our readers greatly enjoy this format of our blog articles.

So do we!

This is why it’s time for another Q&A session. This one is for absolute beginners who have no experience in drop shipping at all.

We’re really happy that our solutions are motivating and encouraging even for people who have no idea how it all works. This is why we will do our best to help you out!

1. What is drop shipping?

Drop shipping is an online business model.

It is really simple:

You find a supplier who sells items all over the globe (most typically, people find such suppliers on AliExpress)
You create or order a webstore
You fill your webstore with images and descriptions of products available from this seller, and set higher prices on them
When someone visits your webstore and places your order, you buy this item from the supplier, but ask him to deliver the product on your client’s address
You get the profit from EVERY purchase – your profit is the difference between the seller’s price and your own price

As you can see, it’s not difficult at all. This business model has tons of benefits:

You don’t need to have anything ‘physical’ – products, office, warehouse, etc. All the deals happen in virtual sphere
You don’t need to buy items in advance, this is why you don’t have the risk of not selling them
You don’t need to rent an actual office and warehouse, and you don’t need to hire people to manage these facilities
You can start the business with the minimal financial investments, only spending money on the webstore development
You can run the business from any point of the globe – all you need is PC or laptop, and a stable Internet connection
You can increase the sellers’ prices any way you like, and no one limits your profit
You’re your own boss – the business fully belongs to you

2. How does the buying and selling process work?

So, you have a ready webstore with product images and descriptions.

A store visitor likes some of your offers, and places an order.

You accept the payment and ask for the client’s name and address.

As soon as you receive the money from the buyer, you transmit the same order to the original AliExpress seller. AliDropship plugin does this automatically, so you won’t get confused with all the orders, sellers, items, countries, addresses, etc.

The seller gets money and customer details from you, makes the package, dispatches it to your buyer, and gives you the tracking code.

You, in turn, send this tracking code to the client, and keep an eye on this order to see how everything’s going.

Nothing extraordinary, in fact!

3. Can I do drop shipping without AliDropship plugin?

Well, yes.

The reason why people all over the globe use this plugin for WordPress-based online stores is that the plugin does the biggest part of the job automatically. Still, the plugin is quite young, even though this business model exists for a long time already. So, several years ago people were just doing drop shipping without any technical help.

We were doing the same – as you know, we have a huge experience of running our own drop shipping stores.

And this is exactly the reason why we created the plugin!

You see, as your business grows bigger, you find it more and more difficult to manage all the processes. To save your time and nerves, and to deal with the most common drop shipping challenges, it is better to go for automatic solutions.

4. What is WordPress?

Speaking in VERY simple terms, it’s a piece of web publishing software.

It’s the most popular solution globally used for building websites and blogs – around 28% of ALL the existing websites are created and managed with the help of WordPress.

You download it from the official provider, install it on your site – and here it is! Now you can easily and conveniently manage your website.

WordPress is free, user-friendly, and super flexible. There exist thousands of plugins, extensions, and themes compatible with it. You can download (or buy) any of them to boost the functionality of your website and make it totally unique.

5. What is hosting?

Again, let’s talk in VERY simple terms.

Hosting is a service provided by experienced companies (you can try doing it yourself, but it will be really challenging to manage).

What do these providers do?

Basically, by giving you hosting, they help you upload all your website information to the Internet.

As soon as you get hosting, everything that you’ve added to your website (texts, pictures, videos, etc.) becomes accessible to Internet users. Therefore, people can find your website, browse it, and view it.

6. How can I make profit using AliDropship plugin?

The plugin does the biggest part of your technical job.

This way, it gives you enough free time to experiment with marketing strategies and boost your store sales.

The more time and effort you devote to marketing, the more impressive is the result!

7. Does AliDropship plugin have a trial period?

There’s no demo or trial period, but we provide 30 days money back guarantee on the plugin.

8. Can I use your standard free theme without AliDropship plugin?

No, the themes will only work if you have installed the plugin.

9. Do I need to register my business?

AliExpress suppliers won’t ask you for any official registration – they will work with you even if you’re just an ordinary person.

Still, every country has its own legal rules. Check the relevant laws carefully!

10. Do I need to sign up drop shipping agreement to start business with you?

No, you don’t need to sign any papers.

So, as you can see, there is nothing scary about drop shipping. You can easily handle it even if you have no previous experience at all, and if you use the right automated solutions, you will enjoy some truly awesome results.

We will be happy to see you joining our drop shipping community!

Dropshipping

How to Easily Manage Day-to-Day Operations in Drop Shipping Business: Q&A Series #5

Every day we get hundreds of questions from absolutely different categories of people.

Can you guess who are the most common askers?

Happy new owners of drop shipping stores have more questions than anyone else!

It’s an absolutely normal situation if you don’t know how to run your brand new business. Don’t worry, you will learn it all in due time. And as for now, we’re always here to guide you.

1. What should I do day to day to manage my webstore?

It may sound obvious, but you need to actually run your drop shipping business every day if you want it to be successful.

It’s not enough to simply own a store without doing anything to it. Take a look at the success story of Alex – during the first month of his newly opened store operation, Alex did nothing to manage the operations. As you can guess, the results weren’t satisfying at all. Everything changed as soon as Alex started paying attention to the business, and now things are going more than well.

So, as an owner of a drop shipping business, you need to:

Manage orders and payments, inventory, and track delivery

Well, this is the essence of drop shipping business, right? You don’t have to handle storage and shipping issues (and it saves you tons of money!), but still, there are business operations that must be managed.

You have nothing to worry about, though, if you have AliDropship plugin already installed. In terms of business operations, it does the majority of necessary tasks, so the only thing you actually need to deal with is human factor.

Communicate with your customers via email and other means

Communication and interaction is probably the only thing that can’t be automated in this business field.

People value personal attitude, and it becomes exceptionally important when it comes to e-commerce.

Just think about it: someone decides to buy a product from you without seeing this item first; basically, this person trusts you with their money, and, to be honest, takes a risk.

Don’t leave them confused and uncertain! Help them, guide them through the store and the shopping process, encourage them to make a purchase, and thank them for their decision.

This is how you will turn their random purchase into a very personal and pleasant experience. This is how you will create additional value of your store, and this is how you will carefully build an audience of loyal and engaged customers.

Drive traffic to your webstore

People won’t locate your store easily, you know?

The competition is astonishing, and Internet is huge.

This is the challenge that can and must be taken. All you need to do is pay attention to your promotional efforts. If you don’t know where to begin, take a look at our Marketing Tips blog section.

Search and import new products for your webstore

It is important to do it regularly – this is how you will keep your existing customers enthusiastic about new offers they didn’t see before. Also, don’t forget about trends and fashion – technologies and interests change quickly, and it is vital to go with the flow. Nobody likes outdated and boring items!

Edit the pages content to make the store look neat and professional

Mostly, it refers to single product pages – when you import new products from AliExpress, the titles and descriptions you get are not perfect at all. This is why it is necessary to take some time and edit everything that doesn’t look good.

Also, don’t forget about search engine optimization – keep it in mind when you’re editing the pages’ content. You won’t see immediate results, but in the long run, these efforts will give your more benefits than you can imagine.

2. What are the costs of running and managing a drop shipping webstore?

Oh, no one can tell you that, actually.

Let’s think of all the possible costs you might have in this business:

Hosting payment – sorry, you just can’t go without it.
First orders payment – you need to order an item on AliExpress to get it delivered to your customer. So, at the beginning of your drop shipping journey you will spend your money first to get later paid by your customer.
Marketing activities – everything is up to you here. Maybe you will launch a full-scale campaign that will cost you hundreds of dollars, and maybe you will simply install some promotional plugin like Social Rabbit.

As you can see, it’s impossible to predict the amount of your expenses. No one defines it but you!

3. What should I do when I receive an order?

Step one: get excited.

Step two: go to the Orders section and click the “Place order automatically” button.

AliDropship plugin will visit AliExpress and create an order for you automatically. It will select necessary product variations, add items to your shopping cart and fill your customer’s shipping details on the checkout page. You will just need to click confirm button to complete a purchase.

Alternatively, you can place the order manually by clicking “Place order manually” button.

Step three: celebrate!

4. Will the cost of an item on AliExpress be deducted from my PayPal account?

AliExpress doesn’t support PayPal as a payment method which is why you can’t use your PayPal account to pay for purchases on AliExpress.com.

In other words, the cost of an item won’t be deducted from your PayPal account. Instead, while placing an order on AliExpress, you can use one of the payment methods supported by the platform.

5. Does the plugin import the shipping costs or do I have to add shipping options to my products?

AliDropship Plugin doesn’t import items’ shipping costs.

We highly recommend offering your customers a free shipping service by taking advantage of the free/low cost shipping offered by many AliExpress sellers. However, the Plugin has a special section where you can enable or disable different shipping options.

You can add up to four different shipping options (including free shipping) to any or all products.

6. Are the customers able to create an account on my website?

Yes, your clients can get the option to create a personal account on your website.

This account gives your customers the opportunity to store their contact and shipping details, check the list of products they purchased, and track the status of any order.

7. Will the customer receive a tracking number? How can our customers track their orders?

Once you placed an order on AliExpress and your supplier shipped an item, you get your tracking ID.

The plugin will automatically collect this tracking data and add it to your order details.

Please note: you need to be logged in your AliExpress account and your AliDropship orders section to activate this tracking auto-filling option.

8. How can I know if the package was delivered to the customer?

If there’s a tracking number available, you can easily track the package delivery.

With this tracking ID provided by the AliExpress supplier, you can check if the customer received an item.

9. My customer didn’t receive the order. What should I do?

First of all, stay calm and don’t panic.

Unfortunately, this happens.

Maybe something went wrong within the postal service, or the customer provided a wrong address, or a seller is shady (did you choose the seller carefully?). You’ll figure it out later, but right now it’s not the first priority.

Secondly, apologize.

Whatever happened, it can all be fixed. Your behavior and personal attitude will help a lot to solve this issue.

If your client did not receive the order or is not satisfied with his purchase, you should follow AliExpress Buyers Protection Policy.

We recommend you to talk to the seller first. Go on AliExpress, open “My Orders” page, select the faulty order and write a private message to the seller. The seller should respond quickly and offer different solutions to fix it. The reputation of the sellers is rather exposed and they are willing to do anything to maintain their feedback rating.

10. How will I handle refunds?

One of the reasons why AliExpress is perfect for drop shipping is its good protection system with full money back guarantee.

So, if your customer is not satisfied with a product and asks you for a refund, you should dispute the purchase with AliExpress seller.

If you are selling inexpensive products, your AliExpress suppliers usually refund you quickly and don’t ask you to return the items. They don’t want to waste their energy on managing disputes and receiving returns for relatively low value items. You can read about it more in our interview with an actual AliExpress seller.

As the result, you can give a full or partial refund to your customer through PayPal without asking them to return the product. This is why we recommend you not to spend all your earned money at once – keep a small fund just to be safe.

Are there any questions we didn’t cover? Feel free to leave them in the comments section below!

Dropshipping

Webstore Design and Themes: Q&A Series #7

It’s time for the well-liked Q&A session again!

Today, designers and developers of AliDropship team are answering the hottest customers’ questions about webstore design and themes. Sit back and enjoy the reading!

1. What do you mean by themes? What are they? How are they different?

Imagine an online store.

As you can guess, a store consists of several elements: products gallery, shopping cart, contact information, etc.

All these blocks can be located in different places of a website, and also, they can look totally different.

Simply speaking, a theme of a webstore is the specific way of all these elements’ placement.

AliDropship team can currently offer you 4 themes that:

Look adorable and artistic
Are optimized for the highest possible conversions
Work smoothly on all the possible devices (personal computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones)

You can view our themes on this page.

Also, you can click on each theme to open it and learn:

What exactly does it look like

Click the ‘Live Demo’ button to view the full-screen design for the home page of a webstore based on this theme.

How does it look on different types of devices

Click on the little icons to learn how this webstore will look on a personal computer, on a laptop, on a tablet, and on a smartphone.

What are the technical features of the theme

View the ‘Specification’ tab to learn more about the technical details of the theme.

What is the history of updates and improvements for this theme

View the ‘Changelog’ tab to learn how our specialists systematically review and upgrade the themes to get rid of possible bugs and introduce new convenient features.

2. So, all of the AliDropship clients can only choose between these 4 themes? You make tons of websites, and all of them look nearly the same? Where is the uniqueness?

Okay, let’s start from the beginning.

Yes, we only use 4 themes for AliDropship custom stores.

And yes, every store we ever made is built on the basis of one of these themes.

And yes, every store IS STILL UNIQUE in its own way!

What do we mean?

The webstore theme is a “skeleton”. It’s the basic structure of the website, and its function is to achieve smooth performance and operation of the site.

Think about cats, for example: these gorgeous animals have the same skeleton that allows them to move graciously. Still, every cat is unique: they all have their specific eye color, fur pattern, hair length, voice tone, etc. The same is true for our webstores: even though they are built on the same structures, from the visual point of view, they are really different.

How do we achieve that?

When clients contact us to order a custom store, we ask them to fill in our standard questionnaire about their personal preferences and wishes. Our customers can tell us everything about the desired product niche, color scheme, logo ideas, etc. They can even show us the examples of banners, pictures, headers etc. they liked on other websites.

We carefully consider all the requests and use our own creative vision to make several design elements that are specially tailored for this particular store.

These elements include logos, icons, favicons, and header images. As you understand, they are TOTALLY unique for every store we create – we NEVER use the same design elements twice.

That’s how we get a specific and memorable appearance for every webstore!

3. Okay, but I still want a REALLY unique theme. What can I do?

If you don’t want to use AliDropship themes as the basis for your store, there is a great alternative.

Your solution is WooCommerce drop shipping. To get a WooCommerce-based store, you will need to install AliDropship Woo plugin. There exist hundreds of WooCommerce themes, so you’ll be able to choose something that is not used by others so often.

Please note: these themes are developed by people living all over the globe and having different skills and different artistic vision, and not by our team.

4. Is it possible to combine themes? I like the shopping cart design on Rembrandt, but I want the main page to look like Michelangelo. Can you make a website out of several parts?

Do you know the story about doctor Frankenstein and his monster created from different body parts?…

Technically, it is possible to make a fully functional website if the elements are taken from different themes. Still, you need to remember that it is a complicated technical job, so it will take a longer time, and also it will cost a little extra.

5. Can I order a store with one theme, and then switch to another theme?

Totally!

When you switch between themes, you need to manually adjust many different things to make the store look neat and professional.

For example, the placement and size of pictures and banners are different on all the themes. It means, if you want to switch to another theme, you will need to make amendments to your existing webstore design elements, and upload them on the website again.

But if you’re ready to dedicate some time and effort to it, you can surely do whatever you want. It’s your own store, after all!

If you want it, you can even switch to the WooCommerce if you have the original AliDropship store, and vice versa. It will take some time (you will need to re-upload all the products again and adjust all the design elements from scratch), but if you really really want it, nothing is impossible😉

6. Can I customize the store myself? How much can I change, and what exactly?

As the full owner of your store, you can do WHATEVER YOU LIKE to change any of the customizable settings. Where you can find them?

When you log into your drop shipping store, you can see the ‘Customization’ tab in your admin area.

In this section, feel free to play with settings you fancy! You can modify them as often as you want to test if your customers like the new version of your webstore design more.

7. Can I move the widgets to a different place on a page?

The placement of the widgets is defined by the store theme you’ve chosen.

You can’t move them to a different place, but you can choose which widgets exactly will be shown on the page.

8. So again, if I order a webstore, which design elements will be included in the package?

Traditionally, these elements are:

Custom logo
Header images
Icons
Favicon
Banners

Here you can read more about these webstore design elements and their importance for your business image.

9. I already have a logo and I want you to use it! Can you integrate it into your design?

Yes, if you already have some webstore design elements created by yourself or someone else, please send the files to us, and we’ll see what we can do.

We can use these files if:

They are suitable from the technical point of view (size, resolution, aspect ratio, etc.)
They are suitable from the artistic point of view (the website design is complex, and all the elements must match each in terms of style, color, etc.)

If possible, we can take the design elements you’re showing us, and change them a little upon your approval.

10. Where do you source the images for headers, banners, etc.? Are they copyrighted?

All the images we use in our designs are bought from stock photo libraries such as Shutterstock. These pictures are licensed for commercial use, which is why it is 100% legal to use them for your webstore design.

Well, that’s the whole story.

Now you can be absolutely sure that you get a beautiful and truly individual design when you order a custom store from us!

Dropshipping

AliDropship Plugin vs AliDropship Woo: How Are These Dropshipping Tools Different?

When an entrepreneur looks for the best dropshipping tools on the market, a careful research is always necessary. The chosen software should simplify order fulfillment, work with product description and images and solve numerous other tasks that are necessary to sell products effectively. Let’s find out what’s the difference between two of the most popular solutions offered by our team!

AliDropship plugin gets chosen by thousands of people all over the globe. Both newcomers and experienced businessmen buy the plugin because they want to dropship products and manage their stores in a quick, easy and efficient way.

Sometimes our clients feel slightly confused: when we receive their order on the plugin purchase, we offer them to choose between two plugin versions which are AliDropship Plugin and AliDropship WooCommerce Plugin.

But how to choose the right one?

What’s the difference between these dropshipping tools?

Which one is better?

Today, we’re answering these questions once and for all!

1. What do you mean by AliDropship Woo plugin?

So, there exists AliDropship plugin that manages the majority of the dropshipping processes automatically.

For the convenience of its users, 2 versions of the plugin were developed by our team.

The first version is AliDropship Original Plugin: it works on any general WordPress website that has no WooCommerce plugin installed. It is important to note that this plugin is only compatible with webstore themes offered by AliDropship.

The second version is AliDropship Woo plugin: it will ONLY work on your website if you have the WooCommerce plugin installed on it.

In case if you don’t know what is WooCommerce exactly, please go to this article.

2. Okay, but which one dropshipping tool is better?

From the technical point of view, both dropshipping solutions are great, really🙂

Both of the plugin versions are carefully tested and regularly updated by our enthusiastic team of highly skilled developers.

From the point of view of the business performance, both of the versions also show equally impressive results. For example, our client, Kingpin from India, uses AliDropship Woo plugin which helped him achieve $28,000 in sales in the first 30 days of the business operation. Another client, Otto from the Baltic states, uses the original version of AliDropship plugin – this is how he made $13,000+ in a single month.

Still, it needs to be mentioned that from the point of view of their functionality, the plugin versions are quite different.

Initially, the plugin was created for one simple purpose: to automatically perform the most important tasks of dropshipping. This is why both of the plugin versions can:

Import products from AliExpress
Import product reviews from AliExpress
Update product info
Apply pricing markup formula
Process the orders placed in your store

So, as you can see, both of these dropshipping tools do the job that takes the majority of time in a daily drop shipping routine, and these processes are completed automatically.

BUT.

AliDropship original plugin has an extended range of additional features and dropshipping tools (for example, it has several built-in themes, a convenient dashboard showing the most important store stats, etc.), which makes it the perfect choice for people who don’t have much experience yet. In other words, it’s an all-inclusive solution that helps you create a turnkey-ready store without any additional development/installation works.

AliDropship WooCommerce plugin, in turn, has only the strictly necessary features: it only performs the core dropshipping functions listed above.

Why is that?

Well, because of the exceptional mechanism of WooCommerce itself. It was designed as a solution for full website customization, which is why there exist a specific plugin or tool for every specific management task. There isn’t such a thing as a universal plugin that would do ALL the desired job. Instead, a WooCommerce website owner is supposed to be skilled and inventive enough to independently source and install a separate plugin for every single one of his/her goals.

You can view the comparison of both versions’ features here.

3. I like the idea of full customization! Is it also true for the store design? I want a 100% unique dropshipping store, you know…

Yes, if you want a super exclusive store with one-of-a-kind design, WooCommerce dropshipping is a good solution.

The thing is, thousands of developers all over the globe develop and upload numerous plugins, tools, and themes for WooCommerce: by combining and choosing these elements at your own pleasure, you get a distinctive store that has no analogs.

But.

AliDropship has NO self-developed WooCommerce themes: we only have 3 store themes that are compatible with the original plugin, built on the example of the most successful stores in the global e-commerce practice, and fully optimised to bring the highest returns.

So, when you buy AliDropship Woo plugin, you don’t receive any built-in store themes along with it. It is totally up to you to find a suitable theme, upload it, and install on your website.

It’s worth mentioning that all the existing Woo themes are produced by people who live all over the world, use a very different professional background, and have really different design and development skills. This is why AliDropship, unfortunately, can’t guarantee that a Woo theme you choose will be good-looking on any device, highly convertible, and smoothly working.

Still, as we really want to help you with your business growth, we have tested a number of the most commonly used WooCommerce themes. Based on our developers’ feedback, we made a list of the most appealing Woo themes in terms of their flexibility, safety, and ability to generate sales. You can find the list of the recommended Woo themes here.

4. So, I got the AliDropship Woo plugin, but, when I log in, I don’t see a logically structured dashboard in my store! What the…?!

Yes, that’s exactly what we were talking about.

When you install the original AliDropship plugin and log in to view the admin panel, the first thing you see is a dashboard that shows the overview of your store stats (you can see the example below):

But, when you work with the AliDropship Woo plugin, it gets a little bit more complicated.

If you run a WooCommerce-based dropshipping store, you can view its stats in the internal admin panel, or use a different independent plugin for this purpose.

There should be a separate plugin for each separate task, remember?…

5. Oh. But your AliDropship Woo plugin still processes the orders, right?

Certainly!

Both our plugin versions can automatically redirect the order information to original AliExpress supplier.

If you use AliDropship Woo plugin, you need to go to the WooCommerce section, then choose the Orders tab, and click on the order you need to redirect. When the window with this order details opens, all you need to do is click on the ‘Place order automatically’ button.

After this, the plugin will do all the job: it will visit AliExpress, select the necessary product variation, add the chosen items to your shopping cart, and write your client’s delivery address on the checkout page.

The only one action you need to take after this is click the Confirm & Pay button at the bottom of your page.

That’s it!

And for the AliDropship plugin, the orders processing is even quicker: you can read the step-by-step guide and view the video instructions here.

6. Are the shipping options identical for both the plugin versions?

Generally, AliDropship plugin allows you to select, set up, and modify lots of shipping options – you can read more about it here.

Still, there are differences.

When you use the original AliDropship plugin, all of your settings are automatically applied to all the deliveries arranged to any country on the globe.

When you use AliDropship Woo plugin, you need to deal with the so-called Shipping Zones: it means that you need to individually assign these settings for every separate region.

7. How do the plugins work with tracking?

If you have the original AliDropship plugin, simply read this article in our knowledge base to find out how to track the order details and how to automatically send the right tracking IDs to your buyers.

If you have the AliDropship Woo plugin, you need to do the following:

Enable your Google Chrome extension
Log in to your AliExpress account
In a different browser tab, open the Orders section and hit the ‘Get tracking’ button

The plugin will synchronize your AliExpress account with your store and, if the original supplier has already provided the tracking ID, this number will automatically appear on the Order page.

8. What about payment gateways?

The original AliDropship plugin is compatible with the majority of the most popular payment gateways across the globe. Here you can view the list of payment gateways supported by AliDropship plugin.

With AliDropship Woo plugin, it’s a whole different story: WooCommerce itself supports almost every payment gateway that exists in the world. It means that you can go on the WooCommerce official website and download any plugin that attaches the necessary payment gateway to your store. Alternatively, you can look for the necessary plugins on the official websites of the desired payment gateways.

9. Can I install Woo plugin on a general WordPress site, or use the original plugin on a WooCommerce site?

Well…it’s not a really good idea in terms of compatibility and smooth working process, and here is why.

The original AliDropship plugin only runs effortlessly on general WordPress websites that have no WooCommerce plugin installed.

The AliDropship Woo plugin is specifically developed to be used on WooCommerce sites.

If you try to mix them up, your store simply won’t work as planned.

Please note: if you already have one of the plugin versions running, it will be quite time-consuming to switch to the alternative one as you will have to delete the current store contents and import all the products from scratch.

10. Is the Woo version a good choice for a beginner in dropshipping?

Hmm.

As you have noticed it from the previous parts of this article, WooCommerce itself is a platform that requires considerable technical knowledge and/or development skills.

If you don’t have any experience in building websites and running online stores, we strongly recommend sticking to the original AliDropship plugin. It has all the necessary drop shipping tools already integrated, which is why you won’t have to waste your time and nerves on the selection and installation of additional plugins.

11. Okay, but… I still can’t decide which of these dropshipping tools suits me better.

There’s nothing to worry about! Go through this tiny checklist and tick the statements you agree with.

I want a store with a totally unique layout that doesn’t look like anything else
I am a programmer / developer / IT person
This is NOT the first online store I’m going to have

I’ve tried all the basic dropshipping solutions on my previous stores, and now I want something a bit more interesting
I’m curious to assemble my store from lots of tiny details, like a Lego bricks dollhouse

Have you just ticked more than 4 statements? Go for AliDropship Woo plugin.

Have you just ticked less than 4 statements? Go for original version of AliDropship plugin.

From the video in our branded YouTube channel, you can learn more about the two types of dropshipping tools: the original AliDropship plugin and its WOO version.